Little Rays of MoonsKine 




BooKXjTXZ-i" 

COPSRiGHT DEPOSrr. 



Little Rays of Moonshine 











BOOKS BY A. P. HERBERT 

THE BOMBER GIPSY 

THE SECRET BATTLE 

THE HOUSE-BY-THE-RIVER 

LITTLE RAYS OF MOONSHINE 

Neiv York: Alfred A. Knopf 











Little Rays of 
Moonshine 



By 



.A 



VL- 



A. P. Herbert 




New York 
Alfred • A. • Knopf 

1921 



Copyright, 1921, by 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. 



fl^^'jf 



5« 



U5 



C 5^ V 



24 1922 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



g)ClA653709 



DEDICATED WITH RESPECT 
TO 

LESLIE SCOTT, K.C., M.P. 



Most of these pieces have appeared in the pages 
of Punch, and I have to thank the Proprietors 
of that paper for their courtesy in permit- 
ting me to republish. " The Book of Jonah " 
appeared in The London Mercury, " The Su- 
preme Court" in The Outlook, "The Art of 
Drawing " and " Reading Without Tears " in 
Land and Water, which perished a few weeks 
later. I thank them all, A.P.H. 



Contents 



Wrong Numbers 9 

The Genius of Mr. Bradshaw 17 

Five Inches 23 

Reading Without Tears 28 

On With the Dance 35 

The Autobiography 42 

The White Spat 47 

The Art of Drawing 55 

About Bathrooms 61 

A Criminal Type 67 

The Art of Poetry 73 

The Book of Jonah 94 

The Mystery of the Apple-pie Beds 105 

The Grasshopper 112 

Little Bits of London 118 

I The Supreme Court 118 

II "The Bear Garden" 126 

III Billingsgate 133 

IV The Bloater Show 140 

V Bond Street I45 
The Little Guiggols 15 ^ 



Wrong Numbers 

I HAVE Invented a new telephone game. It 
is a thoroughly discreditable, anti-social 
game, and I am not proud of it, but it has 
been forced upon me by circumstances. It is now 
clear that my telephone number is the only one 
the operators know, and my game follows the lines 
of all the best modern movements, the principle 
of which is that, if you cannot hit the man you 
are annoyed with, you hit somebody else instead. 
Nowadays, when some perfect stranger is intro- 
duced to me in error on the telephone, I no longer 
murmur, "Wrong number, I'm afraid," in my 
usual accents of sweet sympathy, cool resignation, 
irritation, hatred or black despair; I pretend that 
it is the right number. I lead my fellow-victim on 
into a morass of mystification; I worm out his 
precious secrets; I waste his precious time. If 
you can square your conscience you will find it is 
a glorious game, though I ought to add that con- 
siderable skill is required. It is best, perhaps, to 
make a general rule of answering the call in the 

[9] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

first Instance in a high feminine voice, as much like 
a housemaid, or a charwoman, or a Government 
typist as possible; then you are prepared for any 
development. 

The following are some of the best matches 
I have played: — 



Me. Hullo! 

A Voice. Is that the Midland Railway? 

Me. Yes, Madam. Which department do you 
require? 

A V . It's about some eggs. An egg-box was 
despatched from Hitchin 

Me (obsequious). I will put you through to 
the Goods and Transit Department, Madam. 

A V. {fervent). Oh, thank you! 

Me {after a short stroll round the garden — in 
a gruf railway-voice). Hullo! Motor-vans and 
Haulage Department 

A V . Oh, it's about some eggs. An egg- 
box 

Me {more in sorrow than in anger). You re- 
quire the Goods and Transit Department. I will 
put you through. 

A V. Oh, thank you ! 

Me {after planting a few more of those con- 
[lo] 



Wrong Numbers 

founded cuttings — very suddenly). The 4.45 to 
Bunby Major is suspended, Sir. 

A V . {apologetic). I want to speak about some 
eggs 

Me (horrified). Some legs/ 

A V. (patient). No, some eggs: — E — double 
G — s, eggs. An egg-box was despatched from 
Hitchin by a friend of mine on the 21st 

Me (sharply). What name. Madam? 

A V. Major Bludyer. It was despatched 
on 

Me. Is he one of the Buckinghamshire Blud- 
yers? 

A V. What? Hullo! . . . Hullo! It was 
despatched on 

Me. I mean, is he the Major Bludyer — that 
well-grown old boy? From what I know of his 
eggs 

A V . (growing fainter) . I can't hear you very 
well. It's about some eggs 

Me. Well, I'm very glad to have had this little 
talk. Remember me to old Bludyer. Good-bye. 



II 

Me (squeaky). Hullo! 

A Voice (business-like, in a great hurry). 
Hullo! Is that you, Mortimer? 

["] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Me {very deliberate). Mr. Mortimer is in the 
next room. If you will hold the line I will fetch 
him. Who is it speaking, please? 

A V. Oh, never mind that. 

Me {jirm). Who is it speaking, please? 

A V . Oh, da ! Say it's George. And be 

quick, please. 

Me {after a good deal of unavoidable delay). 
Hullo, George ! 

A V . Hullo, Mortimer ! You have been a 
time! Look here — about this meeting: have you 
got your minutes ready yet? 

Me. Not quite. Practically. I was just doing 
them 

AV. Oh ! Well, it's like this : I've had a talk 
with Sir Donald and he thinks you'd better leave 
out that scene about Atkins and the Debentures. 
He thinks we might have trouble with the Man- 
chester lot if you read that out, but if you don't 
say anything about it they'll never know 

Me. You dirty dog I 

A V. What's that? 

Me {innocent). I didn't say anything. I think 
there's someone on the line — {in a brand-new 
voice) Cuckoo! 

A V . {indignant) . I say, Sir, do you mind get- 
ting off the line? Hullo! Hullo! . . . He's 
gone now. Well, don't forget that. So long, old 

[12] 



Wrong Numbers 

man. Sorry you couldn't come round the other 
night; I wanted you to meet my fiancee — you 
haven't, have you? 

Me. Which one. 

A V. [skittishly) . You old ass — Miss Tickle, 
of course. 

Me. . Oh, I know her. As a matter of fact I 
was engaged to her myself once — but that's many 
years ago. 

A V . What's that? You sound as if you'd got 
a cold. 

Me. I rather think I have. You always make 
such a draught down the telephone. Good-bye, 
old man. 



Ill 

A Voice. Is that the Box-Office? 

Me. Which Box-Office? 

A V. Is that the Paragon Theatre? 

Me. Yes, Madam. 

A V . Oh, have you two seats for next Thurs- 
day? 

Me. Yes, Madam. There is a stall in row D, 
and I have one seat left in the back row in the 
dress-circle — a very good view of the stage. 
Madam. 

A V. Oh, but I want them together. 

[13] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Me. I'm afraid we never sell seats together, 
Madam. The Lord Chamberlain 

A V. Oh, but 

Me. May I ask why you want to see this play, 
Madam? 

A V. I can't hear you. . . . Hullo! 

Me. I mean, between ourselves, it's a thor- 
oughly bad adaptation of a thoroughly bad for- 
eign play thoroughly badly acted by a rotten lot 
of actors. Letty Loo is perfectly awful, and 
there's no room for your legs, unless you would 
care for a box, and there isn't one if you would; 
so if I were you I should stay quietly at home with 
Henry. Au revoir! 

IV 

A Voice {most important) . Hullo! Is that 
the Treasury? 

Me {sweetly feminine). Treasury speaking. 

A V. {as if the end of the world was in sight). 
I want to speak to the Prime Minister's Private 
Secretary. 

Me. The Prime Minister's Private Secretary 
is engaged. I can put you through to the Whips' 
Office. 

A V . {angrily) . I don't want the Whips' Office. 
I want 

[14] 



Wrong Numbers 

Me. One moment, please. 

\^A good many moments pass.'\ 

A V. [menacing). Hullo! Hullo! Hullo/ 

Me (sweetly, as if conferring some priceless 
boon). Put three pennies in the slot and turn the 
handle, please. 

A V. {spluttering) . Look here, put me through 
to the supervisor at once. 

Me {very far of). Supervisor speaking. 

A V. {with suppressed passion, yet pompous 
withal). Look here — I'm a Member of Parlia- 
ment. I've been 

Me {gently). Do not shout into the receiver, 
please. 

A V. Hullo ! I'm a 

Me. Do not say "Hullo!" 

A V. {maddendd). What's that? Hullo! 
Look here — I'm a Member of Parliament, and 
I've been trying for half an hour to get through 
to the Prime Minister's 

Me. I am sorry you have been trrrr-roubled. 
You are thrrrrough now. 

A V. Hullo! Is that the Prime Minister's 
Private Secretary? 

Me {quiet, weary and competent) . Which one 
do you want? 

A V . Hullo ! Sir Thingummy Jig speaking. 
I want to speak to the Prime Minister's 

[•5] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Me. Yes, I heard that. But do you want the 
Principal Private Secretary, or the Assistant Prin- 
cipal Private Secretary, or one of the Personal 
Private Secretaries? I mean there are forty- 
seven of us altogether and it makes a lot of dif- 
ference 

A V. {weakening) . I can't quite hear. Per- 
haps you can help me. It's about 

Me. One moment, please. Here is the Prime 
Minister himself. Would you mind speaking to 
himf I'm rather busy. 

A V. (awestruck). Of course . . . Hullo! 

Me. Hullo ! . . . The Prime Minister speak- 
ing. . . . Look here, Jig, I want to have a word 
with you. Would you mind holding the line a mo- 
ment while I speak to my secretary? 

A V. {fawning). By all means. . . . There's 
no hurry — no hurry at all. 

As far as I know the poor fellow is holding still. 



[i6] 



The Genius of Mr. Bradshaw 

No one will be surprised to hear that the 
Christian name of Mr. Bradshaw was 
George. Indeed, it is difficult to think what 
other name a man of his calibre could have had. 
But many people will be surprised to hear that 
Mr. Bradshaw is no longer alive. Whatever one 
thinks of his work one is inclined to think of him 
as a living personality, working laboriously at 
some terminus — probably at the Charing Cross 
Hotel. But it is not so. He died, in fact, in 1853. 
His first book — or rather the first edition of his 
book ^ — was published in 1839; yet, unlike the 
author, it still lives. He is, in fact, the supreme 
example of the posthumous serial writer. I have 
no information about Mr. Debrett and Mr. 
Burke, but the style and substance of their work 
are relatively so flimsy that one is justified, I think, 
in neglecting them. In any case their public is a 
limited one. So, of course, is Mr. Bradshaw's; 



' "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation Guide 
for Great Britain and Ireland." 

[17] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

but It is better than theirs. Mr. Debrett's book 
we read idly in an idle hour; when we read Mr. 
Bradshaw's it is because we feel that we simply 
must; and that perhaps is the surest test of genius. 

It is no wonder that in some circles Mr. Brad- 
shaw holds a position comparable only to the 
position of Homer. I once knew an elderly clergy- 
man who knew the whole of Mr. Bradshaw's book 
by heart. He could tell you without hesitation 
the time of any train from anywhere to anywhere 
else. He looked forward each month to the new 
number as other people look forward to the new 
numbers of magaines. When it came he skimmed 
eagerly through its pages and noted with a fierce 
excitement that they had taken off the 5.30 from 
Larne Harbour, or that the 7.30 from Galashiels 
was stopping that month at Shankend. He knew 
all the connections; he knew all the restaurant 
trains; and, if you mentioned the 6.15 to Little 
Buxton, he could tell you offhand whether it was 
a Saturdays Only or a Saturdays Excepted. 

This is the exact truth, and I gathered that he 
was not unique. It seems that there is a Brad- 
shaw cult; there may even be a Bradshaw club, 
where they meet at intervals for Bradshaw din- 
ners, after which a paper is read on "Changes 
I have made, with some Observations on Salis- 
bury." I suppose some of them have first edi- 

[18] 



The Genius of Mr. Bradshaw 

tions, and talk about them very proudly; and they 
have hot academic discussions on the best way tc 
get from Barnham Junction to Cardiff without 
going through Bristol. Then they drink the toast 
of "The Master" and go home in omnibuses. My 
friend was a schoolmaster and took a small class 
of boys in Bradshaw; he said they knew as much 
about it as he did. I call that corrupting the 
young. 

But apart from this little band of admirers I 
am afraid that the book does suffer from neglect. 
Who is there, for example, who has read the 
"Directions" on page i, where we are actually 
shown the method of reading tentatively sug- 
gested by the author himself? The odinary 
reader, coming across a certain kind of thin line, 
lightly dismisses it as a misprint or a restaurant 
car on Fridays. If he had read the Preface he 
would know that it meant a shunt. He would 
know that a shunt means that passengers are 
enabled to continue their journey by changing into 
the next train. Whether he would know what that 
means I do not know. The best authorities sup- 
pose it to be a poetical way of saying that you have 
to change — what is called an euphemism. 

No, you must not neglect the Preface; and you 
must not neglect the Appendix on Hotels. As 
sometimes happens in works of a philanthropic 

[19] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

character, Mr. Bradshaw's Appendix has a human 
charm that is lacking in his treatment of his prin- 
cipal theme, the arrival and departure of trains. 
To the careful student it reveals also a high degree 
of organization among his collaborators, the 
hotel-managers. It is obvious, for example, that 
at Bournemouth there must be at least one hotel 
which has the finest situation on the south coast. 
Indeed one would expect to find that there was 
more than one. But no; Bournemouth, excep- 
tionally fortunate in having at once the most select 
hotel on the south coast, the largest and best- 
appointed hotel on the south coast and the larg- 
est and most up-to-date hotel on the south coast, 
has positively only one which has the finest posi- 
tion on the south coast. Indeed, there is only 
one of these in the whole of England, though there 
are two which have the finest position on the east 
coast. 

How is it, we wonder that with so much varia- 
tion on a single theme such artistic restraint is 
achieved? It is clear, I think, that before they 
send in their manuscripts the hotel-managers 
must meet somewhere and agree together the 
exact terms of their contributions to the book. 
"The George" agrees that for the coming year 
"The Crown" shall have the "finest cuisine in 
England," provided "The George" may have 

[20] 



The Genius of Mr. Bradshaw 

"the most charming situation imaginable," and 
so on. I should like to be at one of those meet- 
ings. 

This is the only theory which accounts for the 
curious phrases we find so frequently in the text: 
"Acknowledged to be the finest"; "Admittedly in 
the best position." Who is it that acknowledges 
or admits these things? It must be the other 
managers at these annual meetings. Yes, the re- 
straint of the collaborators is wonderful, and in 
one point only has it broken down. There are no 
fewer than seventeen hotels with an Unrivalled 
Situation, and two of these are at Harrogate, For 
a small place like the British Isles it seems to me 
that this is too many. 

For the rest, what imagery, what exaltation we 
find in this Appendix! Dazed with imagined 
beauty we pass from one splendid haunt to an- 
other. One of them has three golf-courses of its 
own; several are replete with every comfort (and 
is not "replete" the perfect epithet?) Here is a 
seductive one "on the sea-edge," and another 
whose principal glory is its sanitary certificate. 
Another stands on the spot where Tennyson re- 
ceived his inspiration for the Idylls of the King, 
and leaves it at that. In such a spot even "cuisine" 
is negligible. 

On the whole, from a literary point of view, 

[21] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

the hydros come out better than the mere hotels. 
But of course they have unequalled advantages. 
With such material as Dowsing Radiant Heat, 
D'Arsonval High Frequency and Fango Mud 
Treatment almost any writer could be sensational. 
What is High Frequency, I wonder? It is clear, 
at any rate, that it would be madness to have a 
hydro without it. 

Well, I have selected my hotel — on purely liter- 
ary grounds. Or rather I have selected two. 
One is the place where they have the Famous 
Whirlpool Baths. I shall go there at once. 

The manager of the other is a great artist; 
alone among the collaborators he understands 
simphcity. His contribution occupies a whole 
page ; but there is practically nothing in it ; nothing 
about cuisine or sanitation, or elegance, or com- 
fort. Only, in the middle, he writes, quite simply: 
The Most Perfect Hotel in the World. 



[22] 



Five Inches 



THE GREAT JOKE 

THEY came and split a turkey with us on 
Boxing Day, ten old soldiers, all out of a 
job, and only ten legs between them. At 
least there were only ten real legs; two of them 
had admirable imitation ones, and there were six- 
teen excellent crutches. One of them was a miner 
— was, of course; just now he is not mining much; 
perhaps that is why he seemed such a decent 
fellow, not at all violent or unpleasant, as one 
knows those practising miners are. In fact he 
reminded one of the miners one used to have in 
one's platoon. Personally I had the honour to 
have a whole platoon of them. Odd, isn't it, what 
capital fellows they were then, and how sadly they 
deteriorate when they get back to the mines? And 
it was odd, too, to hear this fellow say that he 
wished he could be back in the pits; I thought it 
was such a hateful and dangerous occupation. 
Yes, he was a nice miner, and so were the rest 

[23] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

of them, very cheerful and respectful. But they 
didn't talk much — at first. It was strangely dif- 
ficult to find a safe subject. A few years ago 
there would have been no difiiculty; one would 
have talked war-shop. "Were you ever at 
Ypres?" "I was on Gallipoli." "Did you know 

Captain ?" and so on. We did a little of 

this, but it didnt go very well. 

In the dining-room I keep a large coloured 
photograph of the top of the Vimy Ridge on the 
day of a battle — you know the sort of thing, a 
hideous expanse of broken brown earth, that 
dreadful endless brown, with walls of smoke all 
round the horizon, shells bursting in the middle 
distance, a battered trench in the foreground, with 
a few scattered men climbing out of it, gazing at 
the camera with expressionless faces, stretcher- 
bearers stooping on the parapet with their 
stretchers on their shoulders, odd men straying 
everywhere like lost sheep across the chocolate 
wilderness, looking aimless, looking small. 

Our guests were interested in that picture; it 
was wonderfully like, they said; but I felt that 
my usual remark about it was hardly suitable. 
Usually I tell my guests, and it is true, that I keep 
the picture as a kind of chastener, so that, when 
I am moved to complain at the troubles of this 
world, I can look at the picture and think, "At 

[24] 



Five Inches 

any rate life is better than it was then " It 

was on the tip of my tongue to say so to the one- 
legged men when it came to me that for them, 
perhaps, at the moment, it wasn't true. 

After the turkey and the pudding and the 
crackers, and of course the beer, there was a 
slight thaw, but it was still very difficult. We tried 
to get them to sing. Only a few years ago how 
easy it was. There was "Tipperary" and many 
another rousing chorus. One was familiar in 
those times with the popular songs of the day. 
Unfortunately these were the only songs we could 
produce now. And they didn't suit. "Keep the 
Home-fires Burning," for instance^ — one didn't 
like to suggest that. The chief minstrel of the 
one-legged men, who was also the chief comedian, 
disinterred from a heap of old music, "Your King 
and Country Need You." "How would that go, 
Bert?" he said. He said it without bitterness, I 
don't know why, and Bert's answer was a silent 
grin, and one felt that Bert was right. "Pack up 
your Troubles in your old Kit-bag," "Till the 
Boys Come Home" — all the old titles had a cer- 
tain ironic underlining in that company. 

So we abandoned singing and we sat rather 
silent. There was some desultory conversation 
about the various "trades" to which a grateful 
State had trained them, and left it at that; there 

[25] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

was some mild chaff of Bill, who had been too 
old (at thirty-five) to be trained at all, though 
not to old to learn musketry and lose a leg; but 
socially one felt the "party" was drifting to dis- 
aster. 

It was saved, like many parties, by "shop," and 
not war-shop, at least not exactly. What sort of 
shop will amuse ten one-legged men? Why, one- 
legged shop, of course. Somebody said, "Is your 
leg comfortable?" and that set the ball rolling. 
All the tongues wagged gleefully at once; all the 
technical details of one-legedness, all the points 
of the various kinds of "legs," were brought out 
and tossed about and hotly contested as if we had 
been a number of golfers arguing the merits of 
different makes of putters. Some of us wear 
"stump-socks"; some of us can't stand the things. 
Some of us have "buckets" (graphically de- 
scribed) which we can comfortably pad, and some 
of us have something else not nearly so good. 
Some of us are excited about the new "aluminium" 
legs, four pounds lighter, which are soon to be 
available, though we think it a terrible waste of 
money now that we have most of us got wooden 
ones. Here is a chance for the "economising" 
campaigners! Now then, Lord Rothermere, "No 
Aluminium Legs !" What a war-cry ! Altogether 
[26] 



Five Inches 

it is an enthralling topic; there is no more awk- 
wardness. . . . 

And it is so amusing. Gad, how we laughed! 
There was the story of the man on the Under- 
ground, a friend of ours. Someone trod on his 
false foot in the crowded train and, scrambling 
out in a hurry at a station, he found himself foot- 
less on the platform, while the train slid away 
with the other fellow still standing on his foot. 
Ha, ha ! how we laughed. 

But most of us are "above the knee," and that 
provides the best joke of all. You see it all de- 
pends on the length of your stump (or "stoomp") . 
If you have five inches left you get an eighty per 
cent pension; if you have more you get less — even 
if it is only five and a quarter. That quarter of 
an inch makes all the difference, financially, though 
practically it isn't a great deal of use. How much 
have you got? Ah, you're unlucky. I'm four and 
three-quarters — a near thing, eh? Peals of 
laughter. "You go back and have another inch 
off. Ho, ho, ho!" We roll about in our chairs. 

Well, well, it's a queer world ; but the party was 
a great success after all. 



[27] 



Reading Without Tears 

1AM teaching my daughter to read. It Is very 
difficult. I cannot imagine how I learned to 
read myself. And when I look at the classic 
called Reading Without Tears, which was, I un- 
derstand, the foundation of my learning, I am yet 
more puzzled. The author of the book seems to 
believe strongly in original sin. In the Preface I 
read : "Tears must be shed by sinful little creatures 
subject to waywardness and deserving so many re- 
proofs and corrections"; but reading need not be 
such an occasion; and again, "Observe their minut- 
est actions; shut not your eyes to their sinful 
nature; nor believe them incapable of injustice or 
unkindness, of deceit of covetousness." Perhaps 
this attitude explains the book. 

The author's great idea is pictures. A Is like a 
hut with a window upstairs. B, on the other 
hand, Is like a house with two windows; and little 
b Is like a child with a wide frock coming to you. 
When I look at the pictures opposite I see what 
the author means, but when I look at A and B and 
[28] 



Reading Without Tears 

little b dispassionately by themselves they suggest 
nothing at all to me. I simply cannot imagine the 
hut or the house or the child with the wide frock. 
But let us look at some more. D is like an old 
man leaning on a stick; E is like a carriage with a 
little seat for the driver; G is like a monkey eating 
a cake. These are no better. Try as I may, I 
cannot see the little seat for the driver; or if I 



A 





is like a hut 

with a window 

upstairs 

is like a 
house with two 
windows 

is like 
an open mouth 




"Did we really ....?" 

do, I see it just as vividly in F. But F is like a 
tree with a seat for a child. So I know that I am 
wrong. 

Now the pictorial memory is a valuable thing; 

[29] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

and this pictorial method of teaching is no doubt 
valuable. But surely the pictures are of no real 
use unless there is some inevitable connection, 
however slight, between the form of the thing 
which it is desired to impress on the memory and 
the picture with which it is compared. My daugh- 
ter's imagination is, of course, much more vivid 
than mine, but, even so, I cannot imagine her look- 
ing coolly at the naked D and saying, "Yes, that 
is the old man leaning on a stick." She is more 
likely to say. "That is the ground-floor of the 
house with two windows." for she has a logical 
mind. And even if she does not remember the 
futile picture of the old man in a long shirt with 
his body bent at right angles to his legs, 1 don't 
see why, even then, she should connect him with 
D. There is nothing peculiarly D-ish about an 
old man. Yet it seems that I learned my alphabet 
in this way. I was a clever child, though sinful, 
I fear. 

Then we get on to words. The book follows 
the first principle of all teachers of languages in 
arranging that among the first words which the 
child learns there are as many words as possible 
which he will never use as a child, and, indeed, 
will probably never encounter in his entire career. 
Prominent among the first words in this book are 
such favourites as pap, bin, hob, sob, and sop, em- 

[30] 



Reading Without Tears 

met and tome. Each of these is printed three 

times, in a column, like this: 

Pat Pan Pap 

PAT PAN PAP 

pat pan pap 

Over each column is a little picture. When you 
are teaching the child pap you say to her: "P-aP, 
pap — do you see the pretty picture? That is a 
nanny with a baby in her lap. She is giving the 
baby a bottle. The bottle has pap in it. At least, 
it is not pap, really, but it is called pap for the 
purposes of the alphabet. You remember the 
letters, don't you? First there is a big P — you 
know, like a man with a pack on his back. Then a 
little a, which is like a goose on the water. Then 
a little p ; that is like another man coming to you 
with a pack on his back. Now we have it all in 
big letters. Maggie, read them out." 

Maggie {firmly). K. 

You. No, no, not K. Don't you remember the 
picture? 

Maggie. Yes, it was a nanny with a baby. 

You. No, not that one. It was a man with a 
pack on his back — P. 

Maggie. P. 

You. That's right. What comes next? 

Maggie. A goose on the water. 

You. No, that was a little a. This is a big 

[31] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

letter. Don't you remember the dear little hut 
with the window upstairs ? What letter was that? 

Maggie. B. 

You. No. no, that was a house, not a hut, and 
it had two windows. Don't be so inaccurate. This 
is a big A. Now, what's next? 

Maggie. A little house with a nanny inside. 
And there's a goose in the garden. And a baby. 

You {patiently). No, this is another P. He 
is like a man with a pack on his back. P-A-P pap 
— there you are. That's very good. 

Maggie. May I go into the garden now? 

You. Yes. 

After that we learn sentences, and we raise In 
the child's mind a few more simple pictures of 
Nature by repeating severa-l times such statements 
as: 

A pig had a fig. 

The author introduces us to Ben, who can sup 
sop. Ben, however, has a fat pup, and this pup 
cannot sip sop. My daughter, as I said, has a 
logical mind, and she immediately asked if Ben's 
pup could sup sop. She had perceived at once 
that if he could neither sip nor sup the unfortunate 
animal was cut off from sop altogether. I said I 
didn't know. I don't. But I see that Ben fed 
Poll on bun, so I expect he gave the pup some too. 

[32] 



Reading Without Tears 

It is a pity that the author could not provide 
pictures for some of the more striking incidents 
she records. Some of these would do : 

I met a cat in a bog 

I sat in a bog 

A hog is in a bog 

A wig is in a bog 

A pen is in a bog 

I had a red bed 

Ten men had a pen 

I had a wet hen 

I fed ten men in a den 

I should have thought that by appropriate illus- 
trations the child might have been helped to a 
greater knowledge, not only of letters, but of life. 

But perhaps the most vivid of all these pages is 
page 99, which I produce verbatim: 

A bun is in a tun 
A gun is in a tun 
A dog is in a tun 
A hog is in a tun 
A pig is in a tun 
A wig is in a tun 
A hen is in a tun 
A pen is in a tun 
Note. — Let the child begin the book again, if it likes. 

What is a tun? Until I started out to educate 
my daughter I did not know. But then, I am not 
a sinful child. For hush! it seems to be a sort of 
barrel. I have drawn rather a jolly tun myself. 

[33] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

If we could only look back into our childish 
minds and really recapture the impressions of life 
(if any) which inhabitated us at the end of a day 
when we had triumphantly mastered page 99 and 
similar pages, and if one could set those impres- 
sions down in print, what rich romances might be 
born into the world! 

But is there no Society for the Protection of 
Children from This Sort of Book? 




"A pen is in a tun." 



[34] 



On With the Dance 

I HAVE been to a dance; or rather I have 
been to a fashionable restaurant where danc- 
ing is done. I was not invited to a dance — 
there are very good reasons for that; I was in- 
vited to dinner. But many of my fellow-guests 
have invested a lot of money in dancing. That is 
to say, they keep on paying dancing-instructors to 
teach them new tricks; and the dancing-instructors, 
who know their business, keep on inventing new 
tricks. As soon as they have taught everybody a 
new step they say it is unfashionable and invent 
a new one. This is all very well, but it means that, 
in order to keep up with them and get your 
money's worth out of the last trick you learned, 
it is necessary during its brief life of respectability 
to dance at every available opportunity. You 
dance as many nights a week as is physically pos- 
sible; you dance on week-days and you dance on 
Sundays; you begin dancing in the afternoon and 
you dance during tea in the coffee-rooms of ex- 
pensive restaurants, whirling your precarious way 

[35] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

through littered and abandoned tea-tables; and at 
dinner-time you leap up madly before the fish and 
dance like variety artistes in a highly polished 
arena before a crowd of complete strangers eating 
their food; or, as if seized with an uncontrollable 
craving for the dance, you fling out after the joint 
for one wild gallop in an outer room, from which 
you return, perspiring and dyspeptic, to the con- 
sumption of an ice-pudding, before dashing forth 
to the final orgy at a picture-gallery, where the 
walls are appropriately covered with pictures of 
barbaric women dressed for the hot weather. 

That is what happened at this dinner. As soon 
as you had started a nice conversation with a lady 
a sort of roaring was heard without; her eyes 
gleamed, her nostrils quivered like a horse plan- 
ning a gallop, and in the middle of one of your 
best sentences she simply faded away with some 
horrible man at the other end of the table who 
was probably "the only man in London who can 
do the Double Straddle properly." This went on 
the whole of the meal, and it made connected con- 
versation quite difficult. For my own part I went 
on eating, and when I had properly digested I 
went out and looked at the little victims getting 
their money's worth. 

From the door of the room where the dancing 
was done a confused uproar overflowed, as if sev- 

[36] 



On With the Dance 

eral men of powerful physique were banging a 
number of pokers against a number of saucepans, 
and blowing whistles, and occasional catcalls, and 
now and then beating a drum and several sets of 
huge cymbals, and ceaselessly twanging at innum- 
erable banjos, and at the same time singing in a 
foreign language, and shouting curses or exhorta- 
tions or street cries, or imitating hunting-calls and 
the cry of the hyena, or uniting suddenly in the 
war-whoop of some pitiless Sudan tribe. 

It was a really terrible noise. It hit you like 
the back-blast of an explosion as you entered the 
room. There was no distinguishable tune. It 
was simply an enormous noise. But there was 
a kind of savage rhythm about it which made one 
think immediately of Indians and fierce men and 
the native camps one used to visit at the Earl's 
Court Exhibition. And this was not surprising. 
For the musicians included one genuine negro and 
three men with their faces blacked; and the noise 
and the rhythm were the authentic music of a 
negro village in South Africa, and the words 
which some genius had once set to the noise were 
an exhortation to go to the place where the ne- 
groes dwelt. 

To judge by their movements, many of the 
dancers had, in fact, been there, and had carefully 
studied the best indigenous models. They were 

[37] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

doing some quite extraordinary things. No two 
couples were doing quite the same thing for more 
than a few seconds so that there was endless va- 
riety of extraordinary postures. Some of them 
shuffled secretly along the edges of the room, their 
faces tense, their shoulders swaying like reeds in 
a light wind, their progress almost imperceptible; 
they did not rotate, they did not speak, but some- 
times the tremor of a skirt or the slight stirring 
of a patent-leather shoe showed that they were in- 
deed alive and in motion, though that motion was 
as the motion of a glacier, not to be measured in 
minutes or yards. 

And some in a kind of fever rushed hither and 
thither among the thick crowd, avoiding disaster 
with marvellous dexterity; and sometimes they re- 
volved slowly and sometimes quickly and some- 
times spun giddily round for a moment like gyro- 
scopic tops. Then they too would be seized with 
a kind of trance, or It may be with sheer shortness 
of breath, and hung motionless for a little in the 
centre of the room, while the mad throng jostled 
and flowed about them like the leaves in autumn 
round a dead bird. 

And some did not revolve at all, but charged 
straightly up and down ; and some of these thrust 
their loves forever before them, as the Prussians 
thrust the villagers in the face of the enemy, and 
[38] 



On With the Dance 

some forever navigated themselves backwards 
like moving breakwaters to protect their darlings 
from the rude, precipitate seas. 

Some of them kept themselves as upright as 
possible, swaying slightly like willows from the 
hips, and some of them contorted themselves into 
strange and angular shapes, now leaning perilously 
forward till they were practically lying upon their 
terrified partners, and now bending sideways as 
a man bends who has water in one ear after bath- 
ing. All of them clutched each other in a close 
and intimate manner, but some, as if by separation 
to intensify the joy of their union, or perhaps to 
secure greater freedom for some particular 
spacious manoeuvre, would part suddenly in the 
middle of the room and, clinging distantly with 
their hands, execute a number of complicated side- 
steps in opposite directions, or aim a series of vi- 
cious kicks at each other, after which they would 
reunite in a passionate embrace and gallop in a 
frenzy round the room, or fall into a trance, or 
simply fall down. If they fell down they lay still 
for a moment in the fearful expectation of death, 
as men lie who fall under a horse; and then they 
would creep on hands and knees to the wall 
through the whirling and indifferent crowd. 

Watching them, you could not tell what any 
one couple would do next. The most placid and 

[39] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

dignified among them might at any moment fling 
a leg out behind them and almost kneel in mutual 
adoration, and then, as if nothing unusual had 
happened, shuffle onward through the press; or, 
as though some electric mechanism had been set 
in motion, they would suddenly lift a foot side- 
ways and stand on one leg. Poised pathetically, 
as if waiting for the happy signal when they might 
put the other leg down, these men looked very sad, 
and I wished that the Medusa's head might be 
smuggled somehow into the room for their atti- 
tudes to be imperishably recorded in cold stone; 
it would have been a valuable addition to modern 
sculpture. 

Upon this whirlpool I embarked with the 
greatest misgiving and a strange young woman 
clinging to my person. The noise was deafening. 
The four black men were now all shouting at once 
and playing all their instruments at once, working 
up to the inconceivable uproar of the finale; and 
all the dancers began to dance with a last desper- 
ate fury. Bodies buffeted one from behind, and 
while one was yet looking round in apology or 
anger more bodies buffeted one from the flank. 
It was like swimming in a choppy sea, where there 
is no time to get the last wave out of your mouth 
before the next one hits you. 

Close beside us a couple fell down with a great 

[40] 



On With the Dance 

crash. I looked at them with concern, but no one 
else took any notice. On with the dance ! Faster 
and faster the black men played. I was dimly 
aware now that they were standing on their chairs, 
bellowing, and fancied the end must be near. 
Then we were washed into a quiet backwater, in 
a corner, and from here I determined never to 
issue until the Last Banjo should indeed sound. 
Here I sidled vaguely about for a long time, hop- 
ing that I looked like a man preparing for some 
culminating feat, a side-step or a buzz or a double 
Jazz-spin or an ordinary fall down. 

The noise suddenly ceased ; the four black men 
had exploded. 

"Very good exercise," my partner said. 

"Quite," said I. 



[41] 



The Autobiography 

JOHN ANTONY CRUNCH was one of the 
mildest, most innocent men I ever knew. He 
had a wife to whom he was devoted with a 
dog-like devotion; he went to church; he was shy 
and reserved, and he held a mediocre position in 
a firm of envelope-makers in the City. But he 
had a romantic soul, and whenever the public 
craving for envelopes fell off — and that is seldom 
— he used to allay his secret passion for danger, 
devilry and excitement by writing sensational 
novels. One of these was recently published, and 
John Antony is now dead. The novel did it. 

Yet it was a very mild sort of "shocker," about 
a very ordinary murder. The villian simply slew 
one of his typists in the counting-house with a 
sword-umbrella and concealed his guilt by putting 
her in a pillar-box. But it had "power," and it 
was very favourably reviewed. One critic said 
that "the author, who was obviously a woman, 
had treated with singular delicacy and feeling the 
ever-urgent problem of female employment in 
[42] 



The Autobiography 

our great industrial centres." Another said that 
the book was "a brilliant burlesque of the fashion- 
able type of detective fiction." Another wrote 
that "it was a conscientious analysis of a perplex- 
ing phase of agricultural life." John thought that 
must refer to the page where he had described 
the allotments at Shepherd's Bush. But he was 
pleased and surprised by what they said. 

What he did not like was interpretation offered 
by his family and his friends, who at once decided 
that the work was the autobiography of John An- 
tony. You see, the scene was laid in London, and 
John lived in London; the murdered girl was a 
typist, and there were two typists in John's office; 
and, to crown all, the villian in the book had a 
boar-hound, and John himself had a Skye terrier. 
The thing was as plain as could be. Men he met 
in the City said, "How's that boar-hound of 
yours?" or "I like that bit where you hit the 
policeman. When did you do that?" "You," 
mark you. Old friends took him aside and whis- 
pered, "Very sorry to hear you don't hit it off with 
Mrs, Crunch; I always thought you were such 
a happy couple." His wife's family said, "Poor 
Gladys ! what a life she must have had !" His own 
family said, "Poor John ! what a life she must 
have led him to make him go off with that adven- 
turess!" Several people identified the adventuress 

[43] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

as Miss Crook, the Secretary of the local Mother's 
Welfare League, of which John was a vice-presi- 
dent. 

The fog of suspicion swelled and spread and 
penetrated into every cranny and level of society. 
No servants would come near the house, of if they 
did they soon stumbled on a copy of the shocker 
while doing the drawing-room, read it voraciously 
and rushed screaming out of the front door. 
When he took a parcel of washing to the post- 
office the officials refused to accept it until he had 
opened it and shown that there were no bodies 
in it. 

The animal kingdom is very sensitive to the 
suspicion of guilt. John noticed that dogs avoided 
him, horses neighed at him, earwigs fled from him 
in horror, caterpillars madly spun themselves 
into cocoons as he approached, owls hooted, snakes 
hissed. Only Mrs. Crunch remained faithful. 

But one morning at breakfast Mrs. Crunch 
said, "Pass the salt, please, John." John didn't 
hear. He was reading a letter. Mrs. Crunch 
said again, "Pass the salt, please, John." John 
was still engrossed. Mrs. Crunch wanted the salt 
pretty badly, so she got up and fetched it. As 
she did so she noticed that the handwriting of the 
letter was the handwriting of A Woman. Worse, 
it was written on the embossed paper of the 

[44] 



The Autobiography 

Mother's Welfare League. It must be from 
Miss Crook. And it was. It was about the an- 
nual outing. "Ah, ha!" said Mrs. Crunch. (I 
am afraid that "Ah, ha!" doesn't really convey 
to you the sort of sound she made, but you must 
just imagine.) "Ah, ha! So that's why you 
couldn't pass the salt!" 

Mad with rage, hatred, fear, chagrin, pique, 
jealousy and indigestion, John rushed out of the 
house and went to the office. At the door of the 
office he met one of the typists. He held the 
door open for her. She simpered and refused to 
go in front of him. Being still mad with rage, 
hatred, chagrin and all those other things, John 
made a cross gesture with his umbrella. With a 
shrill, shuddering shriek of "Murder!" the girl 
cantered violently down Ludgate Hill and was 
never seen again. Entering the office, John found 
two detectives waiting to ask him a few questions 
in connection with the Newcastle Pig-sty Mur- 
der, which had been done with some pointed in- 
strument, probably an umbrella. 

After that The Daily Horror rang up and 
asked if he would contribute an article to their 
series on "Is Bigamy Worth While?" 

Having had enough rushing for one day John 
walked slowly out into the street, trying to re- 
member the various ways in which his characters 

[45] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

had committed suicide. He threw himself over 
the Embankment wall into the river, but fell in a 
dinghy which he had not noticed; he bought some 
poison, but the chemist recognised his face from 
a photograph in the Literary Column of The 
Druggist and gave him ipecacuanha (none of you 
can spell that) ; he thought of cutting his throat, 
but broke his thumb-nail trying to open the big 
blade, and gave it up. Desperate, he decided to 
go home. At Victoria he was hustled along the 
platform on the pretence that there is more room 
in the rear of trains. Finally he was hustled on 
to the line and electrocuted. 

And everybody said, "So it was true." 



[46] 



The White Spat 

WHEN it is remembered how large a part 
has been played in history by revolution- 
ary and political songs it is both lament- 
able and strange that at the present time only 
one of the numerous political faiths has a hymn 
of its own — "The Red Flag." The author of the 
words owes a good deal, I should say, to the 
author of "Rule Britannia," though I am inclined 
to think he has gone one better. The tune is that 
gentle old tune which we used to know as "Mary- 
land," and by itself it rather suggests a number 
of tired sheep waiting to go through a gate than a 
lot of people thinking very redly. I fancy the 
author realised this, and he has got over it by put- 
ting in some good powerful words like "scarlet," 
"traitors," "flinch" and "dungeon," whenever the 
tune is particularly sheepish. The effect is effect- 
ive. Just imagine if the Middle Classes Union 
could march down the middle of the Strand sing- 
ing that fine chorus : — 

"Then raise the scarlet standard high 
Beneath its shade we'll live and die; 
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer 
We'll keep the Red Flag flying here." 

[47] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Well, I have set myself to supply some other 
parties with songs, and I have begun with "The 
White Spat," which is to be the party-hymn of the 
High Tories (if any). I have written it to the 
same tune as "The Red Flag," because, when the 
lion finally does lie down with the lamb, it will 
be much more convenient if they can bleat and 
roar in the same metre, and I shall hope to hear 
Mr. Robert Williams and Lord Robert Cecil sing- 
ing these two songs at once one day. I am not 
wholly satisfied with "The White Spat," but I 
think I have caught the true spirit, or, at any 
rate, the proper inconsequence of these things : — 

The White Spat. 

Air — Maryland. 

The spats we wear are pure as snow — 
We are so careful where we go; 
We don't go near the vulgar bus 
Because it always splashes us. 

Chorus. We take the road with trustful hearts, 
Avoiding all the messy parts; 
However dirty you may get 
We'll keep the White Spat spotless yet. 

At night there shines a special star 
To show us where the puddles are; 
The crossing-sweeper sweeps the floor — 
That's what the crossing-sweeper's for. 

Chorus. Then take the road, etc., etc. 

[48] 



The White Spat 

I know it doesn't look much, just written down 
on paper; but you try singing it and you'll find 
you're carried away. 

Of course there ought to be an international 
verse, but I'm afraid I can't compete with the one 
in my model : — 

"Look round : the Frenchman loves its blaze, 
The sturdy German chants its praise; 
In Moscow's vaults its hymns are sung; 
Chicago swells the surging throng." 

"From Russia's snows to Afric's sun 
The race of spatriots is one; 
One faith unites their alien blood — 
There's nothing to be said for mud." 

Now we have the song of the Wee Frees. I 
wanted this to be rather pathetic, but I'm not sure 
that I haven't overdone it. The symbolism, 
though, is well-nigh perfect, and, after all, the 
symbolism is the chief thing. This goes to the 
tune of "Annie Laurie" : — 

The Old Black Brolly. 
Air — Annie Laurie 

Under the Old Umbrella, 

Beneath the leaking gamp, 
Wrapped up in woolly phrases 

We battle with the damp. 

Come, gather round the gamp! 
Observe, it is pre-war; 

[49] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

And beneath the old Black Brolly 
There's room for several more. 

Shameless calumniators 

Calumniate like mad; 
Detractors keep detracting; 

It really is too bad; 

It really is too bad. 
To show we're not quite dead, 

We wave the old Black Brolly 
And hit them on the head. 

Then we have the Nationalist Party. I am 
rather vague about the National Party, but I 
know they are frightfully military, and they keep 
on having Mass Rallies in Kensington — complete 
with drums, I expect. Where all the masses come 
from I don't quite know, as a prolonged search 
has failed to reveal anyone who knows anyone who 
is actually a member of the party. Everybody 
tells me, though, that there is at least one Brig- 
adier-General (Tempy.) mixed up with it, if not 
two, and at least one Lord, though possibly one 
of the Brigadiers is the same as the Lord; but 
after all they represent the Nation, so they ought 
to have a song. They have nothing but "Rule 
Britannia" now, I suppose. 

Their song goes to the tune of "The British 
Grenadiers." I have written it as a duet, but 
no doubt other parts could be added if the oc- 
casion should ever arise.* 



* I understand that it has not arisen. On the contrary 
[50] 



The White Spat 

The National. 
Air — The British Grenadiers. 

Some talk of Coalitions, 

Of Tories and all that; 
They are but cheap editions 

Of the one and only Nat. ; 
Our Party has no equals, 

Though of course it has its peers. 
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row 

For the British Brigadiers. 

You have no idea how difficult it is to write 
down the right number of rows first time ; however 
I daresay the General wouldn't mind a few extra 
ones. 

We represent the Nation 

As no one else can do; 
Without exaggeration 

Our membership is two, 
We rally in our masses 

And give three hearty cheers, 
With a tow, row, row, row, low, row 

For the National Brigadiers. 

There could be a great deal more of that, but 
perhaps you have had enough. 

Of course, if you don't think the poetry of my 
songs is good enough, I shall just have to quote 
some of "The International" words to show you 
that it's the tune that matters. 

[SI] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Here you are: — 

"Arise! ye starvelings from your slumbers, 
Arise! ye criminals of want, 
For reason in revolt now thunders, 
And at last ends the age of cant." 

If people can grow excited singing that, my 
songs would send them crazy. 

Then there is the Coalition. I have had a good 
deal of difficulty about this, but I think that at 
last I have hit the right note; all my first efforts 
were too dignified. This goes to a darkie tune : — 

The Piebald Mare. 

Air — Camptown Ladies. 

Down-town darkies all declare, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah, 
There never was a hoss like the piebald mare 

Doo-dah, doo-dah day! 
One half dark and the other half pale, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah, 
Two fat heads and a great big tail, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah day! 

Chorus. Gwine to run all night, 
Gwine to run all day! 
I put my money on the piebald mare 
Because she run both way. 



Little old Dave he ride that hoss, 
Doo-dah, doo-dah, 



[52] 



The White Spat 



Where'll she be if he takes a toss? 

Doo-dah, doo-dah day! 
De people try to push him off, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah, 
De more dey push de more he scoff, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah day! 

Chorus. Gwine to run, etc. 

Over the largest fence they bound, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah. 
Things exploding all around! 

Doo-dah, doo-dah day! 
One fine day dat boss will burst, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah. 
But little old Dave he'll walk in first, 

Doo-dah, doo-dah day! 

Chorus. Gwine to run, etc. 

Once again, merely written down, the words 
do not thrill, but I hope none of the parties will 
definitely reject these hymns till they have heard 
them actually sung; if necessary I will give a 
trial rendering myself. 

The other day, when we were playing charades 
and had to act L, we did Lloyd George and the 
Coalition; and the people who were acting the 
Coalition sang the above song with really wonder- 
ful effect. It is true that the other side thought 
we were acting Legion and the Gadarene Swine, 
but that must have been because of something 

[53] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

faulty in our make-up. The sound of this great 
anthem was sufficiently impressive to make one 
long to hear the real Coalition shouting it all along 
Downing Street. It is a solo with chorus, you 
understand, and the Coalition come in with a 
great roar of excitement and fervour on doo-dah! 
doo-dah! 

Yes, I like that. 



[54] 



The Art of Drawing 

IT is commonly said that everybody can sing in 
the bathroom; and this is true. Singing is 
very easy. Drawing, though, is much more 
difficult, I have devoted a good deal of time to 
Drawing, one way and another; I have to attend 
a great many committees and public meetings, 
and at such functions I find that Drawing is almost 
the only Art one can satisfactorily pursue during 
the speeches. One really cannot sing during the 
speeches; so as a rule I draw. I do not say 
that I am an expert yet, but after a few more 
meetings I calculate that I shall know Drawing 
as well as it can be known. 

The first thing, of course, is to get on to a really 
good committee; and by a good committee I mean 
a committee that provides decent materials. An 
ordinary departmental committee is no use; gen- 
erally they only give you a couple of pages of 
lined foolscap and no white blotting-paper, and 
very often the pencils are quite soft. White blot- 
ting-paper is essential. I know of no material the 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

spoiling of which gives so much artistic pleasure — 
except perhaps snow. Indeed, if I was asked to 
choose between making pencil-marks on a sheet 
of white blotting-paper and making foot-marks 
on a sheet of white snow I shall be in a quandary. 

Much of the best committees from the point of 
view of material are committees about business 
which meet at business premises — shipping offices, 
for choice. One of the Pacific Lines has the best 
white blotting-paper I know ; and the pencils there 
are a dream. I am sure the directors of that firm 
are Drawers; for they always give you two pencils, 
one hard for doing noses, and one soft for doing 
hair. 

When you have selected your committee 

/ and the speeches are well away, the Draw- 

M ing begins. Much the best thing to draw 

^ is a man. Not the chairman, or Lord Pom- 

_. mery Quint, or any member of the com- 

Fl£. I . . 

mittee, but just A Man. Many novices 
make the mistake of selecting a subject for their 
Art before they begin. Usually they select the 
chairman; and when they find it is more 
like Mr. Gladstone they are discouraged. 
If they had waited a little it could have 
been Mr. Gladstone officially. 

As a rule I begin with the forehead 
and work down to the chin (Fig. i). pie 2 




The Art of Drawing 

When I have done the outline I put in the eye. 
This is one of the most difficult parts of Drawing; 
one is never quite sure where the eye goes. If, 
however, it is not a good eye, a useful tip is to give 
the man spectacles; this generally makes him a 
clergyman, but it helps the eye (Fig. 2). 

Now you have to outline the rest of the head, 
and this is rather a gamble. Personally, I go in 
for strong heads. ( Fig. 3 ) . 

I am afraid it is not a strong neck; I expect he 
is an author, and is not well fed. But that is the 
worst of strong heads; they make it so difficult to 
join up the chin and the back of the neck. 

The next thing to do is to put in 
the ear; and once you have done this 
the rest is easy. Ears are much more 
difficult than eyes (Fig. 4). 

I hope that is right. It seems to 

me to be a little too far to the south- 

^^' ^ ward. But it is done now. And once 

you have put in the ear you can't go back: not 

unless you are on a very good committee which 

provides india-rubber as well as pencils. 

Now I do the hair. Hair may either be very 
fuzzy and black, or lightish and thin. It depends 
chiefly on what sort of pencils are provided. For 
myself I prefer black hair, because then the part- 
ing shows up better (Fig. 5). 

[57] 




Little Rays of Moonshine 

Until one draws hair, one never realizes what 
large heads people have. Doing the hair takes 





Fig. 5 

the whole of a speech, usually even one of the 
chairman's speeches. 





Fig. 6 

This is not one of my best men; I am sure the 
ear is in the wrong place. And I am inclined to 
think he ought to have spectacles. Only then he 
would be a clergyman, and I have decided that he 
is Sir Philip Gibbs at the age of twenty. So he 
must carry on with his eye as it is. 

I find that all my best men face to the west; 
it Is a curious thing. Sometimes I draw two men 
facing each other; but the one facing east is never 
good. 

[58] 



The Art of Drawing 

There, you see (Fig 6) ? The one on the right 
is a Bolshevik; he has a low forehead and beetling 
brows — a most unpleasant man. Yet he has a 
powerful face. The one on the left was meant 
to be another Bolshevik, arguing with him. But 
he has turned out to be a lady, so I have had to 
give her a "bun." She is a lady solicitor; but I 
don't know how she came to be talking to the 
Bolshevik. Here are some more men facing east. 
They are all a little unconvincing, you see. 




When you have learned how to do Men, the 
only other things in Drawing are Perspective 
and Landscape. 




Fig. 7 



[59] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Perspective is great fun : the best thing to do is 
a long French road with telegraph poles (Fig. 7). 

I have put in a fence as well. Unstable, I fear. 

Landscape is chiefly composed of hills and trees. 
Trees are the most amusing, especially fluffy trees. 

Here is a Landscape (Fig. 8). 

Somehow or other a man has got into this land- 
scape; and, as luck would have it, it is Napoleon. 
Apart from this it is not a bad one. 




Fig. 8 

But it takes a very long speech to get an am- 
bitious piece of work like this through. 

There is one other thing I ought to have said. 
Never attempt to draw a man front-face. It 
can't be done. 



[60] 



About Bathrooms 

OF all the beautiful things which are to be 
seen in shop windows perhaps the most 
beautiful are those luxurious baths in white 
enamel, hedged around with attachments and con- 
veniences in burnished metal. Whenever I see 
one of them I stand and covet it for a long time. 
Yet even these super-baths fall far short of what 
a bath should be; and as for the perfect bathroom 
I question if anyone has even imagined it. 

The whole attitude of modern civilization to 
the bathroom is wrong. Why, for one thing, is it 
always the smallest and barest room in the house? 
The Romans understood these things; we don't. 
I have never yet been in a bathroom which was 
big enough to do my exercises in without either 
breaking the light or barking my knuckles against 
a wall. It ought to be a big: room and opulently 
furnished. There ought to be pictures in it, so 
that one could lie back and contemplate them — a 
picture of troops going up to the trenches, and 
another picture of a bus-queue standing in the rain, 

[6i] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

and another picture of a windy day with some 
snow in it. Then one would really enjoy one's 
baths. 

And there ought to be rich rugs in it and pro- 
found chairs; one would walk about in bare feet 
on the rich rugs while the bath was running; and 
one would sit in the profound chairs while drying 
the ears. 

The fact is, a bathroom ought to be equipped 
for comfort, like a drawing-room, a good, full, 
velvety room; and as things are it is solely 
equipped for singing. In the drawing-room, 
where we want to sing, we put so many curtains 
and carpets and things that most of us can't sing 
at all; and then we wonder that there is no music 
in England. Nothing is more maddening than to 
hear several men refusing to join in a simple 
chorus after dinner, when you know perfectly 
well that every one of them has been singing in 
a high tenor in his bath before dinner. We all 
know the reason, but we don't take the obvious 
remedy. The only thing to do is to take all the 
furniture out of the drawing-room and put it 
in the bathroom — all except the piano and a 
few cane chairs. Then we shouldn't have those 
terrible noises in the early morning, and in the 
evening everybody would be a singer. I suppose 
that is what they do in Wales. 

[62] 



About Bathrooms 

But if we cannot make the bathroom what it 
ought to be, the supreme and perfect shrine of 
the supreme moment of the day, the one spot in 
the house on which no expense or trouble is spared, 
we can at least bring the bath itself up to date. 
I don't now, as I did, lay much stress on having 
a bath with fifteen different taps. I once stayed 
in a house with a bath like that. There was 
a hot tap and a cold tap, and hot sea-water and 
cold sea-water, and plunge and spray and 
SHOWER and wave and flood, and one or two 
more. To turn on the top tap you had to stand 
on a step-ladder, and they were all very highly 
polished. I was naturally excited by this, and an 
hour before it was time to dress for dinner I 
slunk upstairs and hurried into the bathroom and 
locked myself in and turned on all the taps at 
once. It was strangely disappointing. The sea- 
water was mythical. Many of the taps refused to 
function at the same time as any other, and the 
only two which were really effective were wave 
and FLOOD. Wave shot out a thin jet of boiling 
water which caught me in the chest, and FLOOD 
filled the bath with cold water long before it could 
be identified and turned off. 

No, taps are not of the first importance, though, 
properly polished, they look well. But no bath 
is complete without one of these attractive bridges 

[63] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

or trays where one puts the sponges and the soap. 
Conveniences like that are a direct stimulus to 
washing. The first time I met one I washed my- 
self all over two or three times simply to make 
the most of knowing where the soap was. Now 
and then, in fact, in a sort of bravado I deliber- 
ately lost it, so as to be able to catch it again and 
put it back in full view on the tray. You can also 
rest your feet on the tray when you are washing 
them, and so avoid cramp. 

Again I like a bathroom where there is an 
electric bell just above the bath, which you can 
ring with the big toe. This is for use when one 
has gone to sleep in the bath and the water is 
frozen, or when one has begun to commit suicide 
and thought better of it. Apart from these two 
occasions it can be used for Morsing instructions 
about breakfast to the cook — supposing you have 
a cook. And if you haven't a cook a little bell- 
ringing in the basement does no harm. 

But the most extraordinary thing about the 
modern bath is that there is no provision for 
shaving in it. Shaving in the bath I regard as the 
last word in systematic luxury. But in the ordin- 
ary bath it is very difficult. There is nowhere to 
put anything. There ought to be a kind of shav- 
ing tray attached to every bath, which you could 
swing in on a flexible arm, complete with mirror 

[64] 



About Bathrooms 

and soap and strop, new blades and shaving-papers 
and all the other confounded paraphernalia. 
Then, I think, shaving would be almost tolerable, 
and there wouldn't be so many of these horrible 
beards about. 

The same applies to smoking. It is incredible 
that to-day in the twentieth century there should 
be no recognised way of disposing of cigarette- 
ends in the bath. Personally I only smoke pipes in 
the bath, but it is impossible to find a place in 
which to deposit even a pipe so that it will not 
roll off into the water. But I have a brother-in- 
law who smokes cigars in the bath, a disgusting 
habit. I have often wondered where he hid the 
ends, and I find now that he has made a cache of 
them in the gas-ring of the geyser. One day the 
ash will get into the burners and then the geyser 
will explode. 

Next door to the shaving and smoking tray 
should be the book-rest. I don't myself do much 
reading in the bath, but I have several sisters-in- 
law who keep on coming to stay, and they all do 
it. Few things make the leaves of a book stick to- 
gether so easily as being dropped in a hot bath, 
so they had better have a book-rest; and if they 
go to sleep I shall set in motion my emergency 
waste mechanism, by which the bath can be 
emptied in malice from outside. 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Another of my inventions is the Progress In- 
dicator. It works like the indicators outside lifts, 
which show where the lift is and what it is doing. 
My machine shows what stage the man inside has 
reached — the washing stage or the merely wallow- 
ing stage, or the drying stage, or the exercises 
stage. It shows you at a glance whether it is 
worth while to go back to bed or whether it is 
time to dig yourself in on the mat. The machine 
is specially suitable for hotels and large country 
houses where you can't find out by hammering on 
the door and asking, because nobody takes any 
notice. 

When you have properly fitted out the bathroom 
on these lines all that remains is to put the tele- 
phone in and have your meals there; or rather to 
have your meals there and not put the telephone 
in. It must still remain the one room where a 
man is safe from that. 



166-] 



A Criminal Type 

TO-DAY I am MAKing aN mno6£vation. 
as you mayalready have guessed, I am typing 
this article myself Zz^lnstead of writing it, 
The idea is to save time and exvBKpense, also to 
demonstyap demonBTrike= =damn, to demon- 
strate that I can type /ust as well as any blessed 
girl if I give my mind to iT" " Typing while 
you compose is really extraoraordinarrily easy, 
though composing whilr you typE is more difficut. 
I rather think my typing style is going to be dif- 
ferent froM my u6sual style, but Idaresay noone 
will mind that much, looking back i see that we 
made rather a hash of that awfuul wurd extraor- 
ordinnaryk? in the middle of a woRd like thaton 
N-e gets quite lost? 2hy do I keep putting ques- 
tionmarks instead of fulstopSI wonder. Now 
you see i have put a fulllstop instead Of a ques- 
tion mark it nevvvver reins but it yours. 

the typewriter to me has always been a mus- 
tery£? and even now that I have gained a perfect 
mastery over the machine in gront of me i have 

[67] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

npt th3 faintest idea hoW it workss% &or in- 
stance why does the thingonthetop the kind of 
overhead Wailway arrangement move along one 
pace afterr every word; I haVe exam aaa ined 
the mechanism from all points of view but there 
seeems to be noreason atall whyit shouould do 
t£is . damn that £, it keeps butting in: it is Just 
lik real life, then there are all kinds oF attractive 
devisesand levers andbuttons of which is amanvel 
in itself, and does somethl5g useful without lettin 
on how it does iT. 

Forinstance on this machinE which is Ami/et 
a mijgey imean a mi/dgt,made of alumium,, and 
very light sothat you caN CARRY it about on 
your £olidays (there is that £ again) and typeout 
your poems onthe Moon immmmediately, and 
there is onely one lot of keys for capITals and 
ordinay latters; when you want todoa Capital 
you press down a special key marked cap i mean 
CAP with the lefft hand and yoy press down 
the letter withthe other, like that abed, no, 
ABCDEFG . how jolly that looks . as a mattr 
of fact th is takes a little gettingintoas all the 
letters on the keys are printed incapitals so now 
and then one forgets topress downthe SPecial 
capit al key. not often, though, on the other 
hand onceone £as got it down and has written 
anice nam e in capitals like LLOYdgeORGE IT 
[68] 



A Criminal Type 

IS VERY DIFFICULT TO REmemBER TO 
PUT IT DOWN AGAIN ANDTHE N YOU 
GET THIS SORT OF THING WHICH 
SPOILS THE LOOOK OF THE HOLE 
PAGE . or els Insted of preSSIng down the key 
marked CAP onepresses down the key m arked 
FIG and then instead of LLOYDGEORGE you 
find that you have written ^96% : 394:3. this is 
very dissheartening and £t is no wonder that 
typists are sooften sououred in ther youth. 

Apart fromthat though the key marked FIG is 
rather fun , since you can rite such amusing things 
withit, things like % and @ and dear old & not to 
mention = and ^ and f and ! ! ! i find that inones 
ordinarry (i never get that word right) cor orres- 
ponden£c one doesnt use expressions like @@ and 
%%% nearly enough, typewriting gives you a 
new ideaof possibilities o fthe engli£h language; 
thE more i look at % the more beautiful it seems 
to Be : and like the simple flowers of england itis 
per£aps most beauti£ul when seeen in the masss, 
Look atit 

% % % % % % % % % % % % 

% % % % % %% % % % % % 

% % % % % % % % % % % % 

% % % % % % % % % % % % 

% Jo % % % % % % % % % % 

how would thatdo for a BAThrooM wall- 

[69] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

paper? it could be produced verery cheaply and 
itcould be calld the CHERRYdesigN damn, 
imeant to put all that in capitals, iam afraid this 
articleis spoilt now but butt bUt curse . But per- 
haps the most excitingthing a£out this mac£ine is 
that you can by pressing alittle switch suddenly 
writein redor green instead of in black; I donvt 
understanh how £t is done butit is very joUY? 
busisisness men us e the device a gre t deal wen 
writing to their membersof PARLIAment, in or- 
der to emphasasise the pointin wich the in£ustice 
is worSe than anyone elses in£ustice . wen they 
come to WE ARE RUINED they burst out into 
red and wen they come to WE w WOULD re- 
mlND YOU tHAT ATtHE LAST E£ECTION 
yoU UNDERTOOk they burst into GReeN. 
thei r typists must enjoy doing those letters, with 
this arrang ment of corse one coul d do allkinds 
of capital wallpapers, for Instance wat about a 
scheme of red £'s and black %'s and gReen &'s? 
this sort of thing 

£%£%£%£%£% 
&£&£&£&£&£ 

£%£%£%£%£% 
&£&£&£&£&£ 

Manya poor man would be glad to £ave that in 
his parLour ratherthan wat he has got now. of 
corse, you wont be ab?e to apreciate the fulll 

[70] 



A Criminal Type 

bauty of the design since i underst and that the 
retched paper which is going to print this has no 
redink and no green inq either; so you must £ust 
immagine that the £'s are red and the &'s are 
green, it is extroarordinarry (wat a t errible- 
word! ! !) how backward in MAny waYs these up- 
todate papers are wwww^^^l^i^i^f now how did 
that happen i wond er; i was experimenting with 
the BACK SPACE key; if that is wat it is for i 
dont thinq i shall use it again, il wonder if i am 
impriving at this^ sometimes i thinq i am and so 
metimes i thinq iam not. we have not had so 
many £'s lately but i notice that theere have been 
one or two misplaced q's & icannot remember to 
write i in capital s there it goes again. 

O curse the typewriter itself is not woUy gilt- 
less like all mac&ines it has amind of it sown and 
is of like passsions with ourselves, i could put 
that into greek if only the machine was not so 
hopelessly MOdern. it's chief failing is that it 
cannot write m'sdecently and instead of h it will 
keep putting that confounded £. as amatter of 
fact ithas been doing m's rather better today 
butthat is only its cusssedusssedness and because 
i have been opening my shoul ders wenever we 
have come to an m; or should it be A m? who 
can tell; little peculiuliarities hke making indif- 
ferent m's are very important & w£en one is bying 

[71] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

a typewriter one s£ould make careful enquiries 
about theme; because it is things of that sort wich 
so often give criminals away, there is notHing 
a detective likes so much as a type riter with an 
idiosxz an idioynq damit an idiotyncrasy. for in- 
stance if i commit a murder i s£ould not thinq of 
writing a litter about it with this of all typewriters 
becusa because that fool ofa £ would give me 
away at once I daresay Scotland Yard have got 
specimens of my trypewriting locked up in some 
pigeon-hole allready. if they £avent they ought 
to; it ought to be part of my dosossier. 

i thing the place of the hypewriter in ART is 
inshufficiently apreciated. Modern art i under- 
stand is chiefly sumbolical expression and straigt 
lines, a typwriter can do strait lines with the under 
lining mark) and there are few more atractive 
symbols thaN the symbols i have used in this arti- 
cel; i merely thro out the sugestion 

I dont tink i shal do many more articles like 
this it is tooo much like work? but I am glad I 
have got out of that £ habit; 

A. P. £. 



[72] 



M 



The Art of Poetry 



ANY people have said to me, "I wish I 

could write poems. I often try, but " 

They mean, I gather, that the impulse, the 
creative itch, is in them, but they don't know how 
to satisfy it. My own position is that I know 
how to write poetry, but I can't be bothered. I 
have not got the itch. The least I can do, how- 
ever, is to try to help those who have. 

A mistake commonly committed by novices is 
to make up their minds what it is they are going 
to say before they begin. This is superfluous 
effort, tending to cramp the style. It is permis- 
sible, if not essential, to select a subject — say, 
MUD — but any detailed argument or plan which 
may restrict the free development of metre and 
rhyme (if any) is to be discouraged. 

With that understanding, let us now write a 
poem about MUD. 

I should begin in this sort of way: — 

Mud, mud, 
Nothing but mud, 
O my God! 

[73] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

It will be seen at once that we are not going to 
have much rhyme in this poem; or if we do we 
shall very soon be compelled to strike a sinister 
note, because almost the only rhymes to mud are 
blood and flood; while, as the authors of our 
hymns have discovered, there are very satisfac- 
tory rhymes to God. They shamefully evaded 
the difficulty by using words like road, but in first- 
class poetry one cannot do that. On the whole, 
therefore, this poem had better be vers libre. 
That will take much less time and be more dra- 
matic, without plunging us into a flood of blood or 
anything drastic like that. We now go on with 
a little descriptive business : — 

Into the sunset, swallowing up the sun, 
Crawling, creeping, 
The naked flats 

Now there ought to be a verb. That is the worst 
of vers libre; one gets carried away by beautiful 
phrases and is brought up suddenly by a complete 
absence of verbs. However at a pinch one can 
do without a verb; that is the best of vers libre: — 

Amber and gold, 
Deep-stained in mystery, 
And the colours of mystery, 

Inapprehensible, 
Golden like wet-gold. 
Amber like a woman of Arabia 

[74] 



The Art of Poetry 

That has in her breast 

The forsaken treasures of old Time, 

Love and Destruction, 

Oblivion and Decaj^ 

And immemorial tins, 

Tin upon tin, 
Old boots and bottles that hold no more 
Their richness in them. 

And I 

We might do a good deal more of this descrip- 
tive business, bringing in something about dead 
bodies, mud of course being full of dead bodies. 
But we had better go on. We strike now the 
personal note : — 

And I, 

I too am no more than a bottle. 

An empty bottle. 
Heaving helpless on the mud of life. 
Without a label and without a cork, 
Empty I am, yet no man troubles 

To return me. 

And why? 
Because there is not sixpence on me. 

Bah! 
The sun goes down. 

The birds wheel home. 
But I remain here. 
Drifting empty under the night, 

Drifting 

When one is well away with this part of the 
poem it is almost impossible to stop. When you 

[75] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

are writing in metre you come eventually to the 
eighth line of the last verse and you have to stop; 
but in vers libre you have no assistance of that 
kind. This particular poem is being written for 
instructional purposes in a journal of limited ca- 
pacity, so it will probably have to stop fairly soon; 
but in practice it would go on for a long time yet. 
In any case, however, it would end in the same 
way, like this: — 

Mud, mud, 
Nothing but mud, 
O, my God! 

That reasserts, you see, in a striking manner, the 
original motif, and somehow expresses in a few 
words the poignant melancholy of the whole 
poem. Another advantage in finishing a long 
poem, such as this would be, in the same way as 
you began it is that it makes it clear to the reader 
that he is still reading the same poem. Some- 
times, and especially in vers libre of an emotional 
and digressive character, the reader has a hideous 
fear that he has turned over two pages and got 
into another poem altogether. This little trick 
reassures him; and if you are writing vers libre 
you must not lose any legitimate opportunity of 
reassuring the reader. 

To treat the same theme in metre and rhyme 

[76] 



The Art of Poetry 

will be a much more difficult matter. The great 
thing will be to avoid having mud at the end of a 
line, for the reasons already given. We had bet- 
ter have long ten-syllable lines, and we had better 
have four of them in each verse. Gray wrote an 
elegy in that metre which has given general satis- 
faction. We will begin: — 

As I came down through Chintonbury Hole 
The tide rolled out from Wurzel to the sea. 

In a serious poem of this kind it is essential to 
establish a locality atmosphere at once; therefore 
one mentions a few places by name to show that 
one has been there. If the reader has been there 
too he will like the poem, and if he hasn't no harm 
is done. The only thing is that locally Chinton- 
bury is probably pronounced Chun'bury, in which 
case it will not scan. One cannot be too careful 
about that sort of thing. However, as an illus- 
tration Chintonbury will serve. 

It is now necessary to show somehow in this 
verse that the poem is about mud; it is also neces- 
sary to organize a rhyme for "Hole" and a rhyme 
for "sea," and of the two this is the more impor- 
tant. I shall do it like this: — 

And like the unclothed levels of my soul 
The yellow mud lay mourning nakedly. 

There is a good deal to be said against these 

[77] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

two lines. For one thing I am not sure that the 
mud ought to be yellow; it will remind people of 
Covent Garden Tube Station, and no one wants to 
be reminded of that. However, it does suggest 
the inexpressible biliousness of the theme, 

I think "levels" is a little weak. It is a good 
poetical word and doesn't mean anything in par- 
ticular; but we have too many words of that kind 
in this verse. "Deserts" would do, except that 
deserts and mud don't go very well together. 
However, that sort of point must be left to the 
individual writer. 

At first sight the student may thing that 
"naked/)?'' is not a good rhyme for "sea." Nor 
is it. If you do that kind of thing in comic poetry 
no Editor will give you money. But in serious 
poetry it is quite legitimate; in fact it is rather 
encouraged. That is why serious poetry is so 
much easier than comic poetry. In my next lec- 
ture I shall deal with comic poetry. 

I don't think I shall finish this poem now. The 
fact is, I am not feeling so inspired as I was. It 
is very hot. Besides, I have got hay-fever and 
keep on sneezing. Constant sneezing knocks all 
the inspiration out of a man. At the same time 
a tendency to hay-fever is a sign of intellect and 
culture, and all the great poets were martyrs to 
it. That is why none of them grew very lyrical 

[78] 



The Art of Poetry 

about hay. Corn excited them a good deal, and 
even straw, but hay hardly ever. 

So the student must finish this poem as best he 
can, and I shall be glad to consider and criticize 
what he does, though I may say at once that 
there will be no prize. It ought to go on for an- 
other eight verses or so, though that is not essen- 
tial in these days, for if it simply won't go on it 
can just stop in the middle. Only then it must 
be headed "Mud: A Fragment." 

And in any case, in the bottom left-hand cor- 
ner, the student must write : 

Chintonbury, May iSth, 1920. 

II 

In this lecture I propose to explain how comic 
poetry is written. 

Comic poetry, as I think I pointed out in my 
last lecture, is much more difficult than serious 
poetry, because there are all sorts of rules. In 
serious poetry there are practically no rules, and 
what rules there are may be shattered with im- 
punity as soon as they become at all inconvenient. 
Rhyme, for instance. A well-known Irish poet 
once wrote a poem which ran like this : — 

"Hands, do as you're bid, 
Draw the balloon of the mind 
That bellies and sags in the wind 

Into its narrow shed." 

[79] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

This was printed in a serious paper; but if the 
poet had sent it up to a humorous paper (as he 
might well have done) the Editor would have 
said, "Do you pronounce it shidf" and the poet 
would have had no answer. You see, he started 
out, as serious poets do, with every intention of 
organizing a good rhyme for bid — or perhaps for 
shed — but he found this was more difficult than 
he expected. And then, no doubt, somebody 
drove all his cattle on to his croquet-lawn, or 
somebody else's croquet-lawn, and he abandoned 
the struggle. I shouldn't complain of that; what 
I do complain of is the deceitfulness of the whole 
thing. If a man can't find a better rhyme than 
shed for a simple word like bid, let him give up 
the idea of having a rhyme at all ; let him write — 

Hands, do as you're told, 
or 

Into its narrow hut (or even hangar). 

That at least would be an honest confession of 
failure. But to write hid and shed is simply a sin- 
ister attempt to gain credit for writing a rhymed 
poem without doing it at all. 

Well, that kind of thing is not allowed in comic 
poetry. When I opened my well-known military 
epic, "Riddles of the King," with the couplet — 

Full dress (with decorations) will be worn 
When General Officers are shot at dawn. 
[80] 



The Art of Poetry 

the Editor wrote cuttingly in the margin, "Do you 
say dornf" 

The correct answer would have been, of course, 
"Well, as a matter of fact I do"; but you cannot 
make answers of that kind to Editors; they don't 
understand it. And that brings you to the real 
drawback of comic poetry; it means constant truck 
with Editors. But I must not be drawn into a dis- 
cussion about them. In a special lecture — two 
special lectures Quite. 

The lowest form of comic poetry is, of 
course, the Limerick; but it is a mistake to sup- 
pose that it is the easiest. It is more difficult to 
finish a Limerick than to finish anything in the 
world. You see, in a Limerick you cannot be- 
gin: — 

There was an old man of West Ham 

and go on 

Who formed an original plan. 

finishing the last line with limb or hen or bun. 
A serious writer could do that with impunity, and 
indeed with praise, but the more exacting tradi- 
tions of Limerical composition insist that, having 
fixed on Ham as the end of the first line, you must 
find two other rhymes to Ham, and good rhymes 
too. This is why there is so large a body of un- 

[81] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

completed Limericks. For many years I have 
been trying to finish the following unfinished 
masterpiece : — 

There was a young man who said "Hell! 
I don't think I feel very well " 

That was composed on the Gallipoli Peninsula ; 
in fact it was composed under fire; indeed I re- 
member now that we were going over the top at 
the time. But in the quiet days of Peace I can get 
no further with it. It only shows how much 
easier it is to begin a Limerick than to end it. 

Apart from the subtle phrasing of the second 
line this poem is noteworthy because it is cast in 
the classic form. All the best Limericks are about 
a young man, or else an old one, who said some 
short sharp monosyllable in the first line. For 
example : — 

There was a young man who said ''// 

Now what are the rhymes to iff Looking up my 
Rhyming Dictionary I see they are : — 

cliff hieroglyph hippogriff 
skiff sniff stiff tiff whiff 

Of these one may reject hippogrif at once, as it is 
in the wrong metre. Hieroglyph is attractive, and 
we might do worse than: — 

There was a young man who said "If 

One murdered a hieroglyph " 

[82] 



The Art of Poetry 

Having, however, no very clear idea of the na- 
ture of a hieroglyph I am afraid that this will also 
join the long list of unfinished masterpieces. Per- 
sonally I should incline to something of this 
kind : — 

There was a young man who said "If 
I threw myself over a cliff 

I do not believe 

One person would grieve " 

Now the last line is going to be very difficult. 
The tragic loneliness, the utter disillusion of this 
young man is so vividly outlined in the first part 
of the poem that to avoid an anticlimax a really 
powerful last line is required. But there are no 
powerful rhymes. A serious poet, of course, could 
finish up with death or faith, or some powerful 
word like that. But we are limited to skif, sniff, 
tiff and whiff. And what can you do with those? 
Students, I hope, will see what they can do. My 
own tentative solution is printed, by arrangement 
with the Publisher, on another page (87). I do 
not pretend that it is perfect; in fact it seems to 
me to strike rather a vulgar note. At the same 
time it is copyright, and must not be set to music 
in the U.S.A. 

I have left little time for comic poetry other 
than Limericks, but most of the above profound 
observations are equally applicable to both, ex- 

[83] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

cept that in the case of the former it is usual to 
think of the last line first. Having done that you 
think of some good rhymes to the last line and 
hang them up in mid-air, so to speak. Then you 
think of something to say which will fit on to those 
rhymes. It is just like Limericks, only you start 
at the other end; indeed it is much easier than 
Limericks, though, I am glad to say, nobody be- 
lieves this. If they did it would be even harder 
to get money out of Editors than it is already. 

We will now write a comic poem about Spring 
Cleaning. We will have verses of six lines, five 
ten-syllable lines and one six-syllable. As the last 
line for the first verse I suggest 

Where have they put my hat? 

We now require two rhymes to hat. In the pres- 
ent context flat will obviously be one, and cat or 
drat will be another. Our resources at present are 
therefore as follows: — 



Line 


I— 

2— 

3- 
4- 
5- 
6- 


- . . . flat. 


drat, 
they 


put my 






- ... cat or 






-Where have 


hat? 



As for the blank lines, imfe is certain to come in 
sooner or later, and we had better put that down, 

[84] 



The Art of Poetry 

supported by life ("What a life!"), and knife or 
strife. There are no other rhymes, except rife, 
which is a useless word. 

We now hold another parade : — 

Terumti — umti — umti — umti — wife, 

Terumti — umti — umti — umti — flat ; 
Teroodle — oodle — oodle — What a life! 

Terumti — oodle — umti — oodle — cat (or drat) ; 
Teroodle — umti — oodle — umti — knife (or strife) ; 

Where have they put my hat? 

All that remains now is to fill in the umti-oodles, 
and I can't be bothered to do that. There is noth- 
ing in it. 

Ill 

In this lecture I shall deal with the production 
of Lyrics, Blank Verse and (if I am allowed) 
Hymns (Ancient and Modern). 

First we will write a humorous lyric for the 
Stage, bearing in mind, of course, the peculiar 
foibles, idiosyncrasies and whims of Mr. Alf Bub- 
ble, who will sing it (we hope). Mr. Bubble's 
principal source of fun is the personal appearance 
of his fellow-citizens. Whenever a new char- 
acter comes on the stage he makes some remark 
about the character's "face." Whenever he does 
this the entire audience rolls about on its seat, 
and cackles and gurgles and wipes its eyes, and 

[85] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

repeats in a hoarse whisper, with variations of its 
own, the uproarious phrasing of Mr. Bubble's 
remark. If Mr. Bubble says, "But look at his 
face!" the audience, fearful lest its neighbours 
may have missed the cream of the thing, splutters 
hysterically in the intervals of eye-wiping and 
coughing and choking and sneezing, "He said, 
'JVhat a face!' " or "He said, 'Did you see his 
face?' " or "He said, 'Is it a face?' " 

All this we have got to remember when we are 
writing a lyric for Mr. Bubble. Why Mr. Bubble 
of all people should find so much mirth in other 
men's faces I can't say, but there it is. If we 
write a song embodying this great joke we may 
be certain that it will please Mr. Bubble; so we 
will do it. 

Somebody, I think, will have made some slight- 
ing remark about the Government, and that will 
give the cue for the first verse, which will be 
political. 

We will begin : — 

Thompson . . . 

I don't know why the people in humorous lyrics 
are always called Thompson (or Brown) , but they 
are. 

Thompson, being indigent, 
Thought that it was time he went 
Into England's Parliament, 
To earn his daily bread ... 

[86] 



The Art of Poetry 

That is a joke against Parliament, you see — 
Payment of Members and all that; it is good. At 
the same time it is usual to reserve one's jokes for 
the chorus. The composer, you see, reserves his 
tune for the chorus, and, if the author puts too 
much into the verse, there will be trouble between 
their Unions. 

Now we introduce the face-motif: — 

Thompson's features were not neat; 
When he canvassed dahn our street 
Things were said I won't repeat, 
And my old moth-ah said : — 

This verse, you notice, is both in metre and 
rhyme; I don't know how that has happened; it 
ought not to be. 

Now we have the chorus : — 

"Oh, Mr. Thompson, 

It isn't any good; 
I shouldn't like to vote for you. 

So I won't pretend I should; 
I know that you're the noblest 

Of all the human race . , ." 

That shows the audience that face is coming 
very soon, and they all get ready to burst them- 
selves. 

"I haven't a doubt, if you get in, 
The Golden Age will soon begin — 
But I don't like — your FACE." 

* Solution: It comes of my having a sniff (see page 83). 

[87] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

At this point several of the audience will simply 
slide off their seats on to the floor and wallow 
about there, snorting. 

The next verse had better be a love-verse. 

Thompson wooed a lovely maid 
Every evening in the shade, 
Meaning, I am much afraid, 
To hide his ugly head . . . 

Head is not very good, I admit, but we must 
have said in the last line, and as we were mad 
enough to have rhymes in the first verse we have 
got to go on with it. 

But when he proposed one night — 
Did it by electric light — 
Mabel, who retained her sight, 
Just looked at him and said : — 

Now you see the idea? 

"Oh, Mr. Thompson, 
It isn't any good ; 
I shouldn't like to marry you, 

So I won't pretend I should ; 
I know that you have riches 
And a house in Eaton Place . . . 

(Here all the audience pulls out Its handkerchief) 

I haven't a doubt that you must be 
The properest possible match for me, 
But I don't like — your FACE." 
[88] 



The Art of Poetry 

I have got another verse to this song, but I will 
not give it to you now, as I think the Editor is 
rather bored with it. It is fortunate for Mr. 
Bubble that he does not have to perform before 
an audience of Editors. 

Having written the lyric the next thing to do 
is to get a composer to compose music for it, and 
then you get it published. This is most difficult, 
as composers are people who don't ever keep 
appointments, and music publishers like locking 
up lyrics in drawers till the mice have got at the 
chorus and the whole thing is out of date. 

By the time that this song is ready Mr. Bubble 
may quite possibly have exhausted the face-motif 
altogether and struck a new vein. Then we shall 
have wasted our labour. In that case we will 
arrange to have it buried in somebody's grave 
( Mr. Bubble's for choice ) , and in A.D. 2000 it will 
be dug up by antiquaries and deciphered. Even 
a lyric like this may become an Old Manuscript 
in time. I ought to add that I myself have com- 
posed the music for this lyric, but I really cannot 
undertake to explain composing as well as poetry. 

The serious lyric or Queen's Hall ballad is a 
much easier affair. But I must first warn the stu- 
dent that there are some peculiar customs attach- 
ing to this traffic which may at first sight appear 
discouraging. When you have written a good 

[89] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

lyric and induced someone to compose a tune for 
it your first thought will be, "I will get Mr. 
Throstle to sing this, and he will pay me a small 
fee or royalty per performance"; and this indeed 
would be a good arrangement to make. The only 
objection is that Mr. Throstle, so far from pay- 
ing any money to the student, will expect to be 
paid about fifty pounds by the student for sing- 
ing his lyric. I do not know the origin of this 
quaint old custom, but the student had better 
not borrow any money on the security of his first 
lyric. 

For a serious or Queen's Hall lyric all that is 
necessary is to think of some natural objects like 
the sun, the birds, the flowers or the trees, men- 
tion them briefly in the first verse and then in the 
second verse draw a sort of analogy or comparison 
between the natural object and something to do 
with love. The verses can be extremely short, 
since in this class of music the composer is allowed 
to spread himself indefinitely and can eke out the 
tiniest words. 

Here is a perfect lyric I have written. It is 
called, quite simply. Evening: — 

Sunshine in the forest, 

Blossom on the tree, 
And all the brave birds singing 

For you — and me. 

[90] 



The Art of Poetry 

Kisses in the sunshine, 

Laughter in the dew, 
And all the brave world singing 

For me — and you, 

I see now that the dew has got into the second 
verse, so It had better be called quite simply "The 
Dawn." 

You notice the artistic parallelism of this lyric; 
I mean, "The brave birds singing" in one verse 
and "The brave world singing" in the next, That 
is a tip I got from Hebrew poetry, especially the 
Psalms: "One day telleth another; and one night 
certlfieth another," and so on. It Is a useful trick 
to remember, and Is employed freely by many 
modern writers, the author of "The King's Regu- 
lations," for example, who in Regulation 1680 
has the fine line : — 

"Disembarkations are carried out in a similar manner to 
embarkations." 

That goes well to the Chant in C major by Mr. P. 
Humphreys. 

But I am wandering. It is becoming clear to 
me now that I shall not have time to do Blank 
Verse or Hymns (Ancient and Modern) In this 
lecture, after all, so I will give you a rough out- 
line of that special kind of lyric, the Topical Song. 
All that Is required for this class of work is a 

[91] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

good refrain or central idea; when you have got 
that, you see how many topics you can tack on 
to it. But if you can tack on Mr. Winston 
Churchill you need not bother about the others. 

Our central idea will be "Rations," and the 
song will be called "Heaps and Heaps" : — 

Now Jimmy Brown 

(always begin like that) 

Now Jimmy Brown 

He went to town, 
But all the people said, 
"We're rationed in our jam, you know, 
Likewise our cheese and bread; 
But we've lot of politicians 

And Ministers galore, 
We've got enough of them and, gee! 

We don't want any more." 

Chorus. 

We've had heaps and heaps and heaps of Mr. Smillie 
(Loud cheers) ; 
We've had heaps and heaps and heaps of our M.P. 
(Significant chuckles) ; 
At political carouses 
We've had heaps of (paper) houses 
But though we wait^ no houses do we see (Bitter 
laughter). 
The khaki-boys were good enough for fighting. 

But now we hear the khaki-coat is barred ; 
If they ration us in Mr. Winston Churchill^ 
Why, anyone may have my ration-card! (Uproar.) 

[92] 



The Art of Poetry 

All you have to do now is to work in some more 
topics. I don't think I shall do any more now. 
The truth is, that that verse has rather taken it 
out of me. 

I feel all barren. 



[93] 



The Book of Jonah 

(/4s almost any modern Irishman would have 
written it) 

( The circumlocution of the play — there is no 
action — takes place I don't know where and I 
can't think when. But the scene is the corner of 
the village square. Mrs. Joner is discovered sit- 
ting in front of her house, knitting, washing socks, 
or perhaps just thinking. In the distance can he 
seen the figure of a male statue, very new, with a 
long inscription on the pedestal. Timothy James 
O'Leary walks by, gazing at the statue.) 

T. J. Good day to you, Bridget Ellen Joner. 
And it's many's the day since I was seeing you. 
{With a jerk of his head.) And isn't it the fine 
statue you have on himself there? 

Mrs. J. It is so. Though, indeed, it is like no 
husband I ever had — or ever will have, I'm 
hoping. 

T. J. It is not — and why would it be? Who 
wants likenesses in a statue when they have all 

[94] 



The Book of Jonah 

that writing and printing below to tell who it is 
above — {piously) — "Michael Flannigan Joner, 
that gave his life for his fellow-travelers"? 

Mrs. J . Aye, it was the only time he ever gave 
anything away in his life, to my knowing, unless 
it would be them sermons and prophecies that he 
would be handing to the folk in the public street, 
and none wanting them any more than the cows 
in the bog. 

T. J. Ah, it was a queer thing entirely ! Have 
you heard any more now what was the way of it, 
for I am not understanding how it was at all. 

Mrs. J. It was the sailors of the ship that did 
be saying they would sail the ship no longer when 
they found that himself was in the Post Office, 
and him travelling for the Government. And 
there was a great storm and the ship was tossing 
the way you wouldn't know was she a ship at all, 
or a cork that a boy throws in the water out of a 
bottle; and the sailors said it was the English 
Government — and why would it not be? — and 
they cried out against himself and said it was hav- 
ing the ship sunk on them he would be, and he 
rose up out of his bed and "Is it sinking the ship 
I would be?" he said, and he threw himself over 
the side into the water — and that was the way 
of it. 

T. J. (reflectively). And him with the rheu- 

[95] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

matics — God rest his soul! And have you any 
pension taken from the Government? 

Mrs. J. I have so. And it's worth more to me 
he is now he's dead than ever he was when he was 
alive with all his praying and preaching and 
prophesying 

T. J. Maybe it's thinking of marrying again 
you might be? 

Mrs. J. And how would I be marrying again, 
Timothy James, and I a lone widow woman with 
no money to pay for the roof over my head — let 
alone weddings? 

T. J. And why would you not be? Sure, you 
have the pension for himself, and what better use 
can a woman find for a pension that is for her 
man that is dead than to get another that is alive 
and well? 

Mrs. J . Will you tell me now where I would 
find a husband that would be the equal of a man 
who gave his life for his fellow-travellers — and 
him with the rheumatics? 

T. J. Sure, it's the grand position you have 
entirely now, and every man and woman in the 
whole country-side scheming and scraping to give 
a few pennies to the collection for the statue, and 
the Lord-Lieutenant himself coming down for the 
unveiling — and it's difllicult it would be to find a 
man that was fine enough to marry you at all — but 

[96] 



The Book of Jonah 

— but {looking round) don't I know the very man 
for you? 

Mrs. J . And who might that be, for goodness 
sake? 

T. J. {confidentially) . Come within now and 
I'll tell you. I'd be fearful here that one of the 
lads would maybe hear me. 

{They go into the house.) 

{A man strolls along the road, looking about 
him with keen interest; he is wild and myste- 
rious of aspect, with shaggy hair and travel- 
stained, untidy clothes. He stops with a start 
in front of the statue and gazes at it with 
amazement ; then he slowly reads the inscrip- 
tion.) 

Mr. J. "Michael Flannigan Joner, who gave 
his life for his fellow-travellers." {In stupefac- 
tion.) Glory be to God! {Turning to the house.) 
Bridget Ellen — are you within there? {He turns 
and gazes at the statue again.) 

{There is a sound of laughter in the house. 
Mrs. J. and Timothy J. come out, arm-in-arm 
and affectionate; they see the man and stop 
dead in the doorway. ) 
T. J. Glory be to God ! 
Mrs. J. The Saints preserve us ! 
T. J. If it isn't Michael Joner himself! 

[97] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Mr. J. It is so (pointing indignantly) . And 
what call had you to make a graven image of him 
in the public street the like of the Kings of Eng- 
land or Parnell himself? 

Mrs. J. And what call had you to come back 
from the dead without a word of warning and I 
after promising myself to a better man? 

Mr. J. {still full of statue) . "Gave his life for 
his fellow-trav " And is it mad you all are? 

Mrs. J. Then you did not do so? {To T.J.) 
Wasn't I telling you? 

Mr. J. I did not indeed. And why would I — 
the low heathen — and I that had my fare paid to 
Tarshish? 

Mrs. J. and T. J. raise their eyebrows at this 
suspicious utterance. 

Mrs. T. J. Tarshish! Sure it's drunk he 
is ! . . . Then how came you lepping into the 
water like a young dog or a boy that does be div- 
ing in the hot weather, and you with 

Mr. J. It was not lepping I was nor diving 
neither, but it's thrown in I was by a lot of heathen 
sailors because I was after prophesying the wrath 
of the Lord upon them 

Mrs. J. Didn't I tell you now that no good 
would come of the prophesying, and you that was 
brought up a decent lad by your own father in 
Kilbay? 

[98] 



The Book of Jonah 

T. J. And what happened to you when you 
were thrown in at all? 

Mr. J. Sure, I was swallowed by a great whale, 
and the Lord said to the whale 

T. J. Holy Mother ! It's mad he is and not 
drunk at all! 

Mr. J. It is not mad I am nor drunk either. 
Wasn't I three days and three nights in the belly 
of the whale, and the sea roaring without, the 
same as a man would lie in his warm bed and it 
raining 

Mrs. J . Three days and three nights ! — and 
isn't it nine months since you lepped out of the 
ship? Will you tell me now where you have been 
in the meanwhile and what you were doing at all? 

Mr. J. Sure the Lord spoke to the whale, and 
the whale threw me up on the dry land 

Mrs. J. {suspicious soul). And where would 
that be now? 

Mr. J. Sure I don't know now 

Mrs. J. I should think not indeed 

Mr. J. — but it was a small little island and 
devil a ship came there at all to take me away 

Mrs. J. {to T. J., lifting her hands). Did you 
ever hear the like of that? And were there any 
fine young ladies or mermaids maybe on that same 
small little island? 

[99] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Mr. J. There were not then — nor statues 
either. 

T. J. {humouring him). And what might ye 
be doing while you were in the belly of the whale, 
Michael Flannigan? 

Mr. J. And why wouldn't I be prophesying 
and praying unto the Lord, the way he would calm 
the whale, and it roaring and lepping in the sea 
hke a trout that has the hook swallowed, and it 
tickling . . ,? 

Mrs. J. It's well you might be praying unto the 
Lord, Michael Flannigan, for it's a queer thing 
entirely if a lone widow woman can no more be 
left in peace without her man coming back from 
the dead to frighten her out of her wits with 
whales and the like, the way she would be the 
laughing stock of the whole country-side ! And 
it's devil a penny will I have from the Govern- 
ment now seeing you are alive again and not dead 
at all. 

T. J. It's a true word, Michael Flannigan, and 
it's queer uneasy I am myself that had set my 
heart on marrying your own wife. 

Mrs. J. And will you tell me now what will we 
be after doing with the grand statue we have put 
up on you, Michael Flannigan, and it's myself that 
has the flesh worn from my fingers with working 
to put a few shillings together to pay for it? 

[lOO] 



The Book of Jonah 

Mr. J. {infuriated). Is It / that was asking 
for a statue at all? {He regards it.) But sure it 
is a fine thing entirely — and why would it not stay 
where It is? 

Mrs. J. And the whole world coming here by 
the train to make a mock of me, the way they 
would be seeing the statue of the man who "gave 
his life for his fellow-travellers," and him sleep- 
ing In his own bed all the time like a common 
man! 

Mr. J. Common, is It? Is It every day you 
have a man coming from the dead that was three 
days and three nights in the belly of a whale? 

Mrs. J. It Is not — thanks be to God! 

T. J. What alls you now, Bridget Ellen ! 
Why wouldn't we be altering the writing that Is 
below the statue and write down this story about 
the whale, or any other fairy-story that he might 
be thinking of In the night and him lying awake — 
for sure it is a grand story and I wouldn't wonder 
would the folk be travelling out from the big 
towns to see the man that was In the belly of a 
whale, when they wouldn't walk across the road 
to see a man that gave his life for his fellow- 
travellers, and they English as like as not. 

Mrs. J. It's little the money I'll be getting 
out of that, I'm thinking. 

T. J. And why will you not? It could be that 

[lOl] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

them music-halls in the big towns and the theayters 
themselves would pay money to Michael Flanni- 
gan for no more than walking on the stage and 
telling the people what went on while he was in the 
whale — the same as they would for a cow that has 
five legs or the smallest woman in the world. 
Sure, didn't they give Peter O'Flaherty three 
pounds for the loan of his duck that had no legs 
at all? 

Mrs. J. It could be that they might, Timothy 
James. 

Mr. J. There is money in them whales, 'tis 
true, and they full of whalebone, the same as the 
fine ladies do use in Dublin for their dress and all. 
And when I was smoking my tobacco-pipe in the 
whale, the oil did be running down the inside of 
the creature the way I was afeered he would take 
fire and the two of us be destroyed altogether. 

T. J . {admiringly) . Did you ever hear the like 
of that? There's them at the theayters that 
would pay you a mint of money for that same 
story, Michael Flannigan ! 

Mr. J. They might so. 

T. J. But tell me now, Michael Flannigan, is 
it the truth or no that them whales have the queer 
small throats on them, the way they couldn't swal- 
low a little whiting, let alone a big man? It 
could be that one of them writing fellows would 
[102] 



The Book of Jonah 

rise up In the theayter and say there was no man 
yet was swallowed by a whale, nor will be neither, 
because of the queer small throat they have on 
them ! How would it be if you were to give it out 
that you were swallowed by a big fish, the way the 
ignorant folk would guess it was a whale and the 
people that do understand whales wouldn't be able 
to say you were telling a lie? 

Mr. J. 'Tis a great head you have on you, 
Timothy James, and it's sorry I am it was myself 
was in the whale and not you. 

T. J. Faith, 'tis glad I am I was never in a 
whale, for they do say they belong to the Eng- 
lish King, the creatures, and God knows what may 
come of the like of that! 

Mr. J. Is it the King of England's they are? 
Then, Glory be to God, I'll have no more to do 
with them! 

T. J. Sure, and there's nothing wrong with the 
King's money, is there? And it's plenty of that 
there will be, I'm thinking. I tell you, it's the 
grand story they'll make in the history-books till 
the world's end of Michael Flannigan Joner that 
was ate by a whale ! 

Mrs. J. And devil a word will they say of 
Bridget Ellen, his wife, that was married to a 
mad fellow, 

T. J. Let you not be vexing yourself now. I 

[103] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

wouldn't wonder would one of them writing fel- 
lows be writing a book about you, or maybe a play, 
and it's the grand talk there will be of Joner's 
wife at the latter end. 
Mrs. J. It might. 

(curtain) 



[104] 



The Mystery of the 
Apple-pie Beds 

(leaves from a holiday diary) 

I 

AN outrage has occurred in the hotel. Late 
on Monday night ten innocent visitors dis- 
covered themselves the possessors of apple- 
pie beds. The beds were not of the offensive 
hair-brush variety, but they were very cleverly 
constructed, the under-sheet being pulled up in 
the good old way and turned over at the top as if 
it were the top-sheet. 

I had one myself. The lights go out at eleven 
and I got into bed in the dark. When one is very 
old and has not been to school for a long time 
or had an apple-pie bed for longer still, there is 
something very uncanny in the sensation, espe- 
cially if it is dark. I did not like it at all. My 
young brother-in-law, Denys, laughed immoder- 
ately in the other bed at my flounderings and im- 
precations. He did not have one. I suspect 
him. . . . 

[105] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

II 

Naturally the hotel is very much excited. It is 
the most thrilling event since the mixed foursomes. 
Nothing else has been discussed since breakfast. 
Ten people had beds and about ten people are 
suspected. The really extraordinary thing is that 
numbers of people seem to suspect me! That is 
the worst of being a professional humorist; every- 
thing is put down to you. When I was accom- 
panying Mrs. F. to-day she suddenly stopped fid- 
dling and said hotly that someone had been tam- 
pering with her violin. I know she suspected me. 
Fortunately, however, I have a very good answer 
to this applie-pie bed charge. Eric says that his 
bed must have been done after dinner, and I was 
to be seen at the dance in the lounge all the even- 
ing. I have an alibi. 

Besides, I had a bed myself; surely they don't 
believe that even a professional humorist could 
be so bursting with humour as to make himself 
an apple-pie bed and not make one for his brother- 
in-law in the same room ! It would be too much 
like overtime. 

But they say that only shows my cleverness. . . . 

Ill 

Then there is the question of the Barkers. 
Most of the victims were young people, who could 
[io6] 



Mystery of Apple-pie Beds 

not possibly mind. But the Barkers had two, 
and the Barkers are a respected middle-aged 
couple, and nobody could possibly make them 
apple-pie beds who did not know them very well. 
That shows you it can't have been me — I — me — 
that shows you I couldn't have done it. I have 
only spoken to them once. 

They say Mr. Barker was rather annoyed. He 
has rheumatism and went to bed early. Mrs. 
Barker discovered about her bed before she got 
in, but she didn't let on. She put out the candle, 
and allowed her lord to get into his apple-pie in 
the dark. I think I shall like her. 

They couldn't find the matches. I believe he 
was quite angry. . . . 

ly 

I suspect Denys and Joan. They are engaged, 
and people in that state are capable of anything. 
Neither of them had one, and they were seen 
slipping upstairs during the dance. They say they 
went out on the balcony — a pretty story. . . . 



I suspect the Barkers. You know, that story 
about Mrs. B. letting Mr. B. get into his without 
warning him was pretty thin. Can you imagine an 

[107] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

English wife doing a thing of that kind? If you 
can it ought to be a ground for divorce under the 
new Bill. But you can't. 

Then all that stuff about the rheumatism — 
clever but unconvincing. Mr. Barker stayed in 
his room all the next morning when the awkward 
questions were being asked. Not well; oh, no! 
But he was down for lunch and conducting for a 
glee-party in the drawing-room afterwards, as 
perky and active as a professional. Besides, the 
really unanswerable problem is, who could have 
dared to make the Barkers' apple-pie beds? And 
the answer is, nobody — except the Barkers. 

And there must have been a lady in it. It was so 
neatly done. Everybody says no man could have 
done it. So that shows you it couldn't have been 
me — I. . . . 

VI 

I suspect Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop is 
fifty-three. He has been in the hotel since this 
time last year, and he makes accurate forecasts of 
the weather. My experience is that a man who 
makes accurate forecasts of the weather may get 
up to any deviltry. And he protests too much. 
He keeps coming up to me and making long 
speeches to prove that he didn't do it. But I never 
said he did. Somebody else started that rumour, 
[io8] 



Mystery of Apple-pie Beds 

but of course he thinks that I did. That comes 
of being a professional humorist. 

But I do believe he did it. You see he is fifty- 
three and doesn't dance, so he had the whole even- 
ing to do it in. 

To-night we are going to have a Court of In- 
quiry. . . . 

VII 

We have had the Inquiry. I was judge. I 
started with Denys and Joan in the dock, as I 
thought we must have somebody there and it 
would look better if it was somebody in the fam- 
ily. The first witness was Mrs. Barker. Her evi- 
dence was so unsatisfactory that I had to have her 
put in the dock too. So was Mr. Barker's. I 
was sorry to put him in the dock, as he still had 
rheumatics. But he had to go. 

So did Mr. WInthrop. I had no qualms about 
him. For a man of his age to do a thing like that 
seems to me really deplorable. And the barefaced 
evasiveness of his evidence ! He simply could not 
account for his movements during the evening at 
all. When I asked him what he had been doing 
at 9.21, and where, he actually said he didn't 
know. 

Rather curious — very few people can account 
for their movements, or anyone else's. In most 

[109] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

criminal trials the witnesses remember to a minute, 
years after the event, exactly what time they went 
upstairs and when they passed the prisoner in the 
lounge, but nobody seems to remember anything in 
this affair. No doubt it will come in time. 

The trial was very realistic. I was able to 
make one or two excellent judicial jokes. Right 
at the beginning I said to the prosecuting counsel, 
"What is an apple-pie bed?" and when he had 
explained I said with a meaning look, "You mean 
that the bed was not in apple-pie order?" Ha, 
ha ! Everybody laughed heartily. . . . 

VIII 

In my address to the jury of matrons I was able 
to show pretty clearly that the crime was the work 
of a gang. I proved that Denys and Joan must 
have done the bulk of the dirty work, under the 
tactical direction of the Barkers, who did the rest; 
while in the background was the sinister figure of 
Mr. Winthrop, the strategical genius, the lurking 
Macchiavelli of the gang. 

The jury were not long in considering their 
verdict. They said: "We find, your Lordship, 
that you did it yourself, with some lady or ladies 
unknown." 

That comes of being a professional humor- 
ist. . . . 

[no] 



Mystery of Apple-pie Beds 

IX 

I ignored the verdict. I addressed the prisoners 
very severely and sentenced them to do the Chasm 
hole from 6.0 a.m. to 6.0 p.m. every day for a 
week, to take out cards and play out every stroke. 
"You, Winthrop," I said, "with your gentlemanly 
cunning, your subtle pretensions of righteous- 
ness " But there is no space for that. . . . 



As a matter of fact the jury were quite right. 
In company with a lady who shall be nameless I 
did do it. At least, at one time I thought I did. 
Only we have proved so often that somebody else 
did it, we have shown so conclusively that we can't 
have done it, that we find ourselves wondering if 
we really did. 

Perhaps we didn't. 

If we did we apologize to all concerned — ex- 
cept, of course, to Mr. Winthrop. I suspect him. 



[Ill] 



The Grasshopper 

THE Animal Kingdom may be divided into 
creatures which one can feed and creatures 
which one cannot feed. Animals which one 
cannot feed are nearly always unsatisfactory; and 
the grasshopper is no exception. Anyone who has 
tried feeding a grasshopper will agree with me. 

Yet he is one of the most interesting of British 
creatures. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is as 
terse and simple as ever about him. "Grasshop- 
pers," it says, "are specially remarkable for their 
saltatory powers, due to the great development 
of the hind legs; and also for their stridulation, 
which is not always an attribute of the male only." 
To translate, grasshoppers have a habit of hop- 
ping ("saltatory powers") and chirping ("stridu- 
lation"). 

It is commonly supposed that the grasshopper 
stridulates by rubbing his back legs together; but 
this is not the case. For one thing I have tried It 
myself and failed to make any kind of noise; and 
for another, after exhaustive observations, I have 

[112] 



The Grasshopper 

established the fact that, though he does move 
his back legs every time he stridulates, his back 
legs do not touch each other. Now it is a law 
of friction that you cannot have friction between 
two back legs if the back legs are not touching; 
in other words, the grasshopper does not rub his 
legs together to produce stridulation, or, to put 
it quite shortly, he does not rub his back legs to- 
gether at all. I hope I have made this point quite 
clear. If not, a more detailed treatment will be 
found in the Paper which I read to the Royal 
Society in 19 12. 

Nevertheless I have always felt that there was 
something fishy about the grasshopper's back legs. 
I mean, why should he wave his legs about when 
he is stridulating? My own theory is that it is 
purely due to the nervous excitement produced by 
the act of singing. The same phenomena can be 
observed in many singers and public speakers. I 
do not think myself that we need seek for a more 
elaborate hypothesis. The Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica, of course, says that "the stridulation or song 
in the Acridiida is produced by friction of the hind 
legs against portions of the wings or wing-covers," 
but that is just the sort of statement which the 
scientific man thinks he can pass off on the public 
with impunity. Considering that stridulation 
takes place about every ten seconds, I calculate 

[113] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

that the grasshopper must require a new set of 
wings every ten days. It would be more in keep- 
ing with the traditions of our public life if the 
scientific man simply confessed that he was baffled 
by this problem of the grasshopper's back legs. 
Yet, as I have said, if a public speaker may fidget 
with his back legs while he is stridulating, why 
not a public grasshopper? The more I see of 
science the more it strikes me as one large mysti- 
fication. 

But I ought to have mentioned that "the Acri- 
diida have the auditory organs on the first ab- 
dominal segment," while "the LocusPida have the 
auditory organ on the tibia of the first leg." In 
other words, one kind of grasshopper hears with 
its stomach and the other kind listens with its leg. 
When a scientific man has committed himself to 
that kind of statement he would hardly have 
qualms about a little invention like the back-legs 
legend. 

With this scientific preliminary we now come to 
the really intriguing part of our subject, and that 
is the place of the grasshopper in modern politics. 
And the first question is. Why did Mr. Lloyd 
George call Lord Northcliffe a grasshopper? I 
think it was in a speech about Russia that Mr. 
Lloyd George said, in terms, that Lord North- 
cliffe was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it 

[IH] 



The Grasshopper 

at that. He said that Lord Northcliffe was not 
only a grasshopper but a something something 
grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshop- 
ping there — you know the sort of thing. There 
was nothing much in the accusation, of course, and 
Lord Northcliffe made no reply at the time; in 
fact, so far as I know, he has never publicly stated 
that he is not a grasshopper; for all we know it 
may be true. But I know a man whose wife's 
sister was in service at a place where there was a 
kitchen-maid whose young man was once a gar- 
dener at Lord Northcliffe's, and this man told 
me — the first man, I mean — that Lord North- 
cliffe took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers 
were allowed in the garden from that day forth; 
no green that was at all like grasshopper-green 
was tolerated in the house, and the gardener used 
to come upon his Lordship muttering in the West 
Walk: "A grasshopper! He called me a grass- 
hopper — ME — A grasshopper!" The gardener 
said that his Lordship used to finish up with, "/'ll 
teach him" ; but that is hardly the kind of thing a 
lord would say, and I don't believe it. In fact, I 
don't believe any of it. It is a stupid story. 

But this crisis we keep having with France ow- 
ing to Mr. Lloyd George's infamous conduct does 
make the story interesting. The suggestion is, 
you see, that Lord Northcliffe lay low for a long 

[115] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

time, till everybody had forgotten about the grass- 
hopper and Mr. Lloyd George thought that Lord 
Northcliffe had forgotten about the grasshopper, 
and then, when Mr. Lloyd George was in a hole, 
Lord Northcliffe said, 'Woto we'll see if I am a 
grasshopper or not," and started stridulating at 
high speed about Mr. Lloyd George. A crude 
suggestion. But if it were true it would mean that 
the grasshopper had become a figure of national 
and international importance. It is wonderful 
to think that we might stop being friends with 
France just because of a grasshopper; and, if Lord 
Northcliffe arranged for a new Government to 
come in, it might very well be called "The Grass- 
hopper Government." That would look fine in 
the margins of the history books. 

Yes, it is all very "dramatic." It is exciting to 
think of an English lord nursing a grievance about 
a grasshopper for months and months, seeing 
grasshoppers in every corner, dreaming about 
grasshoppers. . . . But we must not waste time 
over the fantastic tale. We have not yet solved 
our principal problem. Why did Mr. Lloyd 
George call him a grasshopper — a modest, 
friendly little grasshopper? Did he mean to sug- 
gest that Lord Northcliffe hears with his stomach 
or stridulates with his back legs? 

Why not an earwig, or a black-beetle, or a 
[ii6] 



The Grasshopper 

wood-louse, or a centipede? There are lots of 
insects more offensive than the grasshopper, and 
personally I would much rather be called a grass- 
hopper than an earwig, which gets into people's 
sponges and frightens them to death. 

Perhaps he had been reading that nice passage 
in the Prophet Nahum : "Thy captains are as the 
great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in 
the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee 
away, and their place is not known where they 
are," or the one in Ecclesiastes: "And the grass- 
hopper shall be a burden." I do not know. On 
the other hand, the Encyclopcedia has a suggestive 
sentence: "All grasshoppers are vegetable 
feeders and have an incomplete metamorphosis, 
so that their destructive powers are continuous 
from the moment of emergence from the egg until 
death.'' 



[117] 



Little Bits of London 
I 

THE SUPREME COURT 

AMONG those curious corners of London 
life which anyone may go to see but no- 
body does, one of the most curious, and 
(for about five minutes) interesting, is the House 
of Lords sitting as the Supreme Court of Appeal. 
It is one of the ordinary things which go on and 
on unnoticed for a lifetime because they have gone 
on so long, till one day one begins to think about 
them and realizes suddenly that they were really 
extraordinary all the time — just as one pro- 
nounces sometimes with a startling sense of its 
absurdity some common English word. But no 
sight-seer, no student of our institutions, and par- 
ticularly no one who is interested in the ways and 
customs of individual trades, should fail to visit 
the Supreme Appellate Tribunal of this great 
country. 

The funny thing about the House of Lords 

[ii8] 



Little Bits of London 

sitting as a court is that it actually sits in the 
House of Lords. Entering the great red chamber 
— as anybody may do if he can find the way — one 
receives the impression that it is perfectly empty, 
save for the knot of barristers' clerks, solicitors' 
clerks, pressmen and casual onlookers who are 
huddled round the entrance. Beyond them are 
miles, and miles, and miles of red leather benches, 
silent, mournful, untenanted, dead. But no ! A 
low monotonous drone reaches you — like the 
voice of a priest intoning at the other end of a 
cathedral. Guided by this sound you discover 
faint traces of life on one of the vast red benches. 
There is an old man sitting on the bench, a pleas- 
ant, bearded old man; he does not look at all 
legal, and he is dressed in every-day clothes, hud- 
dled up in front of a sort of small card-table cov- 
ered with huge tomes. He is speaking apparently 
into space — in a kind of squeaky hum, if you can 
imagine the sound — fumbling all the time with 
the large brown tomes. 

Look again. Beyond him, a very long way off, 
is another old man, a very, very jolly old man, 
with another beard, another card-table, and more 
tomes. He is staring with profundity at the 
bench opposite. Following his gaze, you detect 
with amazement another old man, all alone on the 
great red bench. No, not alone. With something 

[119] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

of the sensations of a man who stands by a stag- 
nant pond or looks at a drop of drinking water 
through a microscop(e to discover that it is teem- 
ing with life, you detect yet a fourth old man 
on the very same bench, though, of course, a long 
way away. Both of them are equipped as the 
others, though one of them, for some reason which 
does not appear, has no beard. You are ready 
for anything now, so quite quickly you find the 
fifth old man, far, far away in the distance, all 
alone on an island in the emptiness, so far off that 
he seems to be cut off from all communication with 
the other old men, or anyone else. Yet suddenly 
his lips move, and it is seen that he is speaking. 
He is the presiding old man, and he begins speak- 
ing while the first old man is still droning. From 
the faint movement of his head and the far gleam 
of his eyes you draw the conclusion that he is 
speaking to some living creature in your own 
neighborhood; and, sure enough, you find that 
close to you, but curtained off, there are seven or 
eight men shut up in a wooden pen about seven 
feet square. These must be the prisoners, and 
that is the dock, you think. But no, it is the bar- 
risters; as the House of Lord is very holy they 
are only allowed to huddle on the doorstep. One 
of them is standing in front of the pen at a sort 
of lectern, wearing a big wig (the special House 
[120] 



Little Bits of London 

of Lords wig), and waiting patiently till the old 
men have stopped squeaking. Most of the other 
men in the pen are asleep, but two of them are 
crouching intently behind the other one, and they 
keep tugging at his gown, or poking him in the 
back, and whispering suggestions at him. When 
they do this he whispers back with an aspect of 
calm, *'Yes, yes — I follow," but you know he does 
not follow, and you know he is really in a great 
rage, because he is trying to hear with the other 
ear what the old man is saying, and the old man is 
so far away and his voice is so gentle, and his 
sentences are so long and so full of parentheses, 
very often in Latin, that it is hard enough to have 
to follow him, without being whispered at from 
the rear. 

At last the old man shuts his mouth very firmly 
in a legal manner, and it is clear that he has 
stopped speaking. It is the barrister's turn. He 
starts off with a huge sentence about "the pre- 
sumption of intent under the Drains and Mort- 
gages (Consolidation) Act, 1892," but when he 
is right in the middle of it the fourth old man, 
whom everybody supposed to be fast asleep, wakes 
up and asks the barrister an awkward question 
about the Amending Act of 1899, just to show 
that he has got a grip of the whole thing. The 
barrister has not the faintest idea what the answer 

[121] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Is, but he begins one Immediately, as if It was 
quite easy, for that is the game. While he Is 
groping about In the middle of a huge remark 
which means nothing at present but may very likely 
lead him to the right answer in the end, the third 
old man, in order to confuse the barrister, makes 
an Interjection which he pretends is on the same 
point, but is really on a totally different point, 
which the barrister did not propose to deal with 
for days and days to come. When I say "inter- 
jection" I mean that he delivers extremely slowly 
a sentence of inconceivable duration, a sentence 
so long that it seems really as If it would never 
end. Finally, the presiding old man decides that 
it Is time it did end, so he interrupts rather testily. 
Then all the old men frankly abandon the pre- 
tence that the barrister has got anything to do 
with It, and they just argue quietly with each other 
across the vast red spaces. Meanwhile, the poor 
men in the pen try to stretch their legs, and mutter 
fiercely at each other. Four or five of them are 
immensely distinguished K.C.'s, earning thousands 
and thousands a year, the very first men in their 
profession. Yet they tamely submit to being con- 
fined in a tiny space where there Is no room for 
their papers, or their tomes, let alone their legs, 
for days and days and sometimes weeks, with the 
whole of the House of Lords empty in front of 
[122] 



Little Bits of London 

them except for the five old men who spend the 
day badgering them at ease from comfortable 
sofas. 

To argue a case in the House of Lords must 
be one of the severest strains to which middle- 
aged men are ever subjected; it requires tremend- 
ous qualities of concentration and patience and in- 
tellectual quickness (not to speak of the labour 
of preparing the cases beforehand). At half-past 
one, when they have endured this for three hours, 
they dash out to lunch ; they are lucky if they get 
anything to eat before twenty minutes to two, 
but at two (presumably because the House of 
Lords is required for legislative purposes when 
they have done with it) they have to dash back 
to the pen again, where digestion must be quite 
impossible, even if you are not required to argue 
with the old men. No manual labourer in the 
world would tolerate such conditions for a day. 
Either he would break out of the pen and put 
up his feet on the red benches, or, very sensibly, 
he would insist that the House of Lords, when 
sitting as a court, must sit in a place which was 
suitable for a court, if it was only a committee- 
room in the upper purlieus of the House. 

I cannot imagine why the barristers do not say 
that. It is not as if there was any impressive 
pomp or ceremony connected with this archaic sur- 

[123] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

vival; if there were, It might be worth it. But 
nothing could be less impressive than these old 
men mumbling desolately in everyday clothes and 
beards at rows and rows of empty red sofas. I 
am told that when the Lord Chancellor presides 
he does wear robes, but the other Lords still wear 
mufti. That must be a great sight, but not, I 
should think, extravagantly solemn. 

But perhaps that is the real secret of the British 
Constitution — our capacity to extract solemnity 
from the incongruous or the merely dull. I once 
heard the House of Lords deliver judgment — 
after days and days of argument — in a case of 
the highest constitutional importance, involving 
the rights of the Crown, and what remain of the 
rights of the subject. All England was waiting 
with real interest for the issue. One by one the 
old men read out their long opinions, opinions of 
great profundity and learning and care, opinions 
of the greatest judges in the land, universally and 
rightly respected, opinions that will be quoted in 
every history and text-book, in every constitutional 
case, for hundreds of years to come. It took 
nearly a day to read them. While they were be- 
ing read, the old men who were not reading, the 
barristers, the odd dozen of "the public," the 
clerks, everybody — sat or stood in a sort of coma 
of stupefied boredom, gazing at nothing. No one 
[124] 



Little Bits of London 

stirred. Only, very far away, the gentle voice of 
the old man might have been heard rolling up to 
the roof, and squeaking about in the corners, and 
buzzing about like a sleepy bee under the benches 
— and always with a faint note of querulous 
amazement, as if the old man could not believe 
that anyone was listening to what he was saying. 
And he was right — for nobody was. 
We are a marvellous nation. 



[125] 



Little Bits of London 
II 

"THE BEAR GARDEN" 

THE authors of the guide-books have sig- 
nally failed to discover the really interest- 
ing parts of Law-land. I have looked 
through several of these books and not one of 
them refers, for example, to the "Bear-Garden," 
which is the place where the preliminary skirmishes 
of litigation are carried out. The Bear-Garden 
is the name given to it by the legal profession, so 
I am quite in order in using the title. In fact, if 
you want to get to it, you have to use that title. 
The proper title would be something like The 
Place where Masters in Chambers function at 
Half-past One : but if you go into the Law Courts 
and ask one of the attendants where that is, he 
will say, rather pityingly, "Do you mean the Bear- 
Gardenf^ And you will know at once that you 
have lost caste. Caste is a thing you should be 
very careful of in these days; so the best thing is 

[126] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

to ask for the Bear-Garden straightaway. It is 
in the purlieus of the Law Courts, and very hard 
to find. It is up a lot of very dingy back stair- 
cases and down a lot of very dingy passages. The 
Law Courts are like all our public buildings. The 
parts where the public is allowed to go are fairly 
respectable, if not beautiful, but the purlieus and 
the basements and the upper floors are scenes of 
unimaginable dinginess and decay. The Law 
Courts' purlieus are worse than the Houses of 
Parliament purlieus; and it seems to me that even 
more disgraceful things are done in them. It only 
shows you the dangers of Nationalization. 

On the way to the Bear-Garden you pass the 
King's Remembrancer's rooms; this is the man 
who reminds His Majesty about people's birth- 
days; and in a large family like that he must be 
kept busy. Not far from the King's Remem- 
brancer there is a Commissioner for Oaths; you 
can go into this room and have a really good 
swear for about half a crown. This is cheaper 
than having it in the street — that is, if you are 
a gentleman; for by the Profane Oaths Act, 1745, 
swearing and cursing is punishable by a fine of 
IS. for every day-labourer, soldier or seaman; 2s. 
for every other person under the degree of gentle- 
man; and 5s. for every person far above the de- 
gree of gentleman. This is not generally known. 

[127] 



Little Bits of London 

The Commissioner for Oaths is a very broad- 
minded man, and there is literally no limit to what 
you may swear before him. The only thing is 
that he insists on your filing it before you actually 
say it. This may cause delay, so that if you are 
feeling particularly strongly about anything, it is 
probably better to have it out in the street and risk 
being taken for a gentleman. 

There are a number of other interesting func- 
tionaries on the way to the Bear-Garden; but we 
must get on. When you have wandered about 
in the purlieus for a long time you will hear a tre- 
mendous noise, a sort of combined snarling and 
roaring and legal conversation. When you hear 
that you will know that you are very near the 
bears. They are all snarling and roaring in a large 
preliminary arena, where the bears prepare them- 
selves for the struggle; all round it are smaller 
cages or arenae, where the struggle takes place. 
If possible, you ought to go early so that you can 
watch the animals massing. Lawyers, as I have 
had occasion to observe before, are the most long- 
suffering profession in the country, and the things 
they do in the Bear-Garden they have to do in the 
luncheon-hour, or rather in the luncheon half- 
hour, 1.30 to 2. This accounts, perhaps, for the 
extreme frenzy of the proceedings. They hurry 
in in a frenzy up the back stairs about 1.25, and 
[128] 



Little Bits of London 

they pace up and down in a frenzy till the time 
comes. There are all sorts of bears, most of them 
rather seedy old bears, with shaggy and unkempt 
coats. These are solicitors' clerks, and they all 
come straight out of Dickens. They have shiny 
little private-school handbags, each inherited, no 
doubt, through a long line of ancestral solicitors' 
clerks; and they all have the draggled sort of 
moustache that tells you when it is going to rain. 
While they are pacing up and down the arena they 
all try to get rid of these moustaches by pulling 
violently at alternate ends; but the only result is 
to make it look more like rain than ever. Some 
of the bears are robust old bears, with well-kept 
coats and loud roars; these are solicitors' clerks 
too, only better-fed ; or else they are real solicitors. 
And a few of the bears are perky young creatures 
— in barrister's robes — either for the first time — 
when they look very self-conscious — or for the 
second time — when they look very self-confident. 
All the bears are telling each other about their 
cases. They are saying, "We are a deceased 
wife's sister suing in forma pauperis/' or, I am a 
discharged bankrupt, three times convicted of per- 
jury, but I am claiming damages under the Dis- 
eases of Pigs Act, 1862," or "You are the crew of 
a merchant ship and we are the editor of a news- 
paper " Just at first it is rather disturbing to 

[129] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

hear snatches of conversation like that, but there 
is no real cause for alarm; they are only identify- 
ing themselves with the interests of their clients, 
and when one realizes that one is a little touched. 
At last one of the keepers at the entrance to the 
small cages begins to shout very loudly. It is not 
at all clear what he is shouting, but apparently it 
is the pet-names of the bears, for there is a wild 
rush for the various cages. Attaching himself to 
this rush the observer is swept with a struggling 
mass of bears past the keeper into a cage. Across 
the middle of the cage a stout barricade has been 
erected, and behind the barricade sits the Master, 
pale but defiant. Masters in Chambers are bar- 
risters who have not the proper legal faces and 
have had to give up being ordinary barristers on 
that account; in the obscurity and excitement of 
the Bear-Garden nobody notices that their faces 
are all wrong. The two chief bears rush at the 
Master and the other bears jostle round them, 
egging them on. When they see that they can- 
not get at the Master they begin snarling. One 
of them snarls quietly out of a long document 
about the Statement of Claim. He throws a copy 
of this at the Master, and the Master tries to 
get the hang of it while the bear is snarling; but 
the other bear is by now beside himself with rage 
and he begins putting in what are called interloc- 

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Little Bits of London 

utory snarls, so that the Master gets terribly con- 
fused, though he doesn't let on. By and by all 
pretence of formality and order is put aside, and 
the battle really begins. At this stage of the pro- 
ceedings the rule is that not less than two of the 
protagonists must be roaring at the same time, of 
which one must be the Master. But the more 
general practice is for all three of them to roar 
at the same time. Sometimes, it is true, by sheer 
roar-power, the Master succeeds in silencing one 
of the bears for a moment, but he can never be 
said to succeed in cowing a bear. If anybody is 
cowed it is the Master. Meanwhile, the lesser 
bears press closer and closer, pulling at the damp 
ends of their rainy moustaches and making whis- 
pered suggestions for new devilries in the ears of 
the chief bears, who nod their heads emphatically, 
but don't pay any attention. The final stage is the 
stage of physical violence, when the chief bears 
lean over the barricade and shake their paws at 
the Master; they think they are only making 
legal gestures, but the Master knows very well 
that they are getting out of hand; he knows then 
that it is time he threw them a bun. So he says 
a soothing word to each of them and runs his pen 
savagely through almost everything on their 
papers. The bears growl in stupefaction and rage, 
and take deep breaths to begin again. But mean- 

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Little Rays of Moonshine 

while the keeper has shouted for a fresh set of 
bears, who surge wildly into the room. The old 
bears are swept aside and creep out, grunting. 
What the result of it all is I don't know. Nobody 
knows. The new bears begin snarling. . . . 



[132] 



Little Bits of London 
III 

BILLINGSGATE 

IN order to see Billingsgate properly in action 
it is necessary to get up at half-past four and 
travel on the Underground by the first train 
East, which is an adventure in itself. The first 
train East goes at three minutes past /..-e, and 
there are large numbers of people who travel in 
it every day; by Charing Cross it is almost 
crowded. It is full of Bolshevists; and I do not 
wonder. One sits with one's feet up in a first- 
class carriage, clutching a nice cheap workman's 
ticket and trying hard to look as if, like the Bol- 
shevists, one did this every day. 

On arriving at the Monument Station one walks 
briskly past the seductive announcement that "The 
Monument is Now Open," and plunges Into a 
world of fish. I have never been able to under- 
stand why fish are so funny. On the comic stage 
a casual reference to fish is almost certain to pro- 

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Little Rays of Moonshine 

yoke a shout of laughter; hi practice, and especi- 
ally in the mass, it is not so funny; it is like the 
Government, an inexhaustible source of humour 
at a distance, and in the flesh extraordinarily dull. 

Over the small streets which surround the mar- 
ket hangs a heavy pall of fishy vapour. The 
streets are full of carts; the carts are full of fish. 
The houses in the streets are fish-dealers' places, 
more or less full of fish. The pavements are full 
of fish-porters, carrying fish, smelling of fish. 
Fragments of conversation are heard, all about 
fish. Fish lie sadly in the gutters. The scales of 
fish glitter on the pavements. A little vigorous 
swimming through the outlying fisheries brings 
you to the actual market, which is even more won- 
derful. Imagine a place like Covent Garden, and 
nearly as big, but entirely devoted to fish. In the 
place of those enchanting perspectives of flower- 
stalls, imagine enormous regiments of fish-stalls, 
paraded in close order and groaning with halibut 
and conger-eel, with whiting and lobsters and huge 
crabs. Round these stalls the wholesale dealers 
wade ankle-deep in fish. Steadily, maliciously, the 
great fish slide off the stalls on to the floor; stead- 
ily the dealers recover them and pile them up on 
their small counters, or cast them through the 
air on to other counters, or fling them into baskets 
in rage or mortification or sheer bravado. 

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Little Bits of London 

The dealers are men with business-faces, in long 
white coats, surprisingly clean. Every now and 
then they stop throwing crabs into baskets or re- 
trieving halibut from the floor, and make little 
entries in long note-books. I do not know exactly 
what entries they make, but I think they must all 
be in for some competition, and are making notes 
about their scores; one man I watched had obvi- 
ously just beaten the record for halibut retrieving. 
He retrieved so many in about a minute that the 
tops of his boots were just beginning to show. 
When he had done that he made such long notes 
in his book about it that most of the halibut slide 
on to the floor again while he was doing it. Then 
he began all over again. But I expect he won 
the prize. 

Meanwhile about a million fish-porters are 
dashing up and down the narrow avenues between 
the fish-stalls, porting millions of boxes of fish. 
Nearly all of them, I am glad to say, have been in 
the army or have had a relative in the army; for 
they are nearly all wearing the full uniform of a 
company cook, which needs no description. On 
their heads they have a kind of india-rubber hat, 
and on the india-rubber hat they have a large box 
of fish weighing about six stone — six stone, I tell 
you. This box they handle as if it was a box of 
cigars. They pick it up with a careless gesture; 

[135] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

they carry it as if it was a slightly uncomfortable 
hat, and they throw it down with another care- 
less gesture, usually on to another box of fish; 
this explains why so many of one's herrings ap- 
pear to have been maimed at sea. 

When they have finished throwing the boxes 
about they too take out a notebook and make notes 
about it all. This, it seems, is to make sure that 
they are paid something for throwing each box 
about, I don't blame them. It must be a hard 
life. Yet if I thought I could pick up six stone 
of salmon and plaice and throw it about I should 
sign on at Billingsgate at once. It is true they 
start work about five ; but they stop work, it seems, 
about ten, and they earn a pound and over for 
that. Then they can go home. Most of them, I 
imagine, are stockbrokers during the rest of the 
day. 

And they are a refined and gentlemanly body of 
men. I hope the old legend that the fish-porter of 
Billingsgate expresses himself in terms too forcible 
for the ordinary man is now exploded; for it is 
a slander. In fact, it is a slander to call him a 
"porter"; at least in these days I suppose it is 
libellous to connect a man falsely with the N.U.R., 
if only by verbal implication. But, however that 
may be, I here assert that the Billingsgate fish- 
porter is a comparatively smooth and courteous 

[136] 



Little Bits of London 

personage, and, considering his constant associa- 
tion with fish in bulk, I think it is wonderful. 

At the far end of the market is the river 
Thames; and on the river Thames there is a ship 
or two, chockful of fish. Fish-porters with a kind 
of blase animation run up and down a long gang- 
way to the ship with six-stone boxes of fine fresh 
whiting on their heads. These boxes they pile up 
on a chute (carefully noting each box in their note- 
books), after which an auctioneer auctions the 
boxes. This is the really exciting part of the show. 
The dealers or the dealers' agents stand round in 
a hungry ring and buy the boxes of fish as they 
slide down the chute. The dealers seem to detail 
a less cultured type of man for this purpose, and 
few of the bidders come up to the standard of re- 
finement of the fish-porters. But the auctioneer 
understands them, and he knows all their Christian 
names. He can tell at a glance whether it is 
Mossy Isaacs or Sam Isaacs. He is a very clever 
man. 

They stand round looking at the boxes of fish, 
and when one of them twitches the flesh of his 
nose or faintly moves one of his eyelashes it means 
that he has bought six stone of whiting for thirty 
shillings. That is the only kind of sign they give, 
and the visitor will be wise not to catch the auc- 
tioneer's eye, or blow his nose or do any overt 

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Little Rays of Moonshine 

action like that, or he may find that he has bought 
six stone of salmon and halibut for forty-five shil- 
lings. At an auction of fish it is true to say that a 
nod is as good as a wink; in fact, it is worse. 

The dealers are silent, motionless men; but no- 
body else is. Everybody else is dashing about 
and shouting as loud as he can. As each box of 
fish is sold the porters dash at it and shout at it 
(of course in a very gentlemanly way) and carry 
it off in all directions. It is quite clear that no- 
body knows who has bought it or where it is go- 
ing. The idea of the whole thing is to impress 
the visitor with the mobility of fish, and this ob- 
ject is successfully attained. No doubt when tTie 
visitors have gone away they settle down and de- 
cide definitely who is to have the fish. 

It is now about half-past six. Fish is still rush- 
ing in at one end from the ship and is rushing in 
at the other from the rail-vans. The porters are 
throwing the fish at the dealers' stalls (registering 
each hit in their notebooks), and the dealers are 
throwing it on to the floor or throwing it at each 
other or trying to throw it at a retailer, who al- 
ways puts on a haughty air and passes on to the 
next stall, till he gets too entangled in the game 
and finds that he has bought twenty-four stone of 
whiting at twopence a pound; then he throws it 
at some more porters, and the porters dash out- 
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Little Bits of London 

side and throw it at the carts, and the carts clatter 
away to Kensington, and my wife buys a whiting 
at tenpence a pound, and the circle of fish organi- 
zation is complete. 

At about this point it is a good thing to pass 
on to Covent Garden and buy some flowers. 



[139] 



Little Bits of London 

IV 
THE BLOATER SHOW 

THE last time I was at Olympia — as every- 
body says at the door — it was a Horse 
Show. But this time it is much the same. 
There they stand in their stalls, the dear, magni- 
ficent, patient creatures, with their glossy coats 
and their beautiful curves, their sensitive radiators 
sniffing for something over the velvet ropes. Pant- 
ing, I know they are, to be out in the open again; 
and yet I fancy they enjoy it all in a way. It would 
be ungrateful if they did not; for, after all, the 
whole thing has been arranged for them. The 
whole idea of the Show is to let the motors in- 
spect the bloaters — and not what you think. (You 
don't know what bloaters are? Well, I can't ex- 
plain without being rude.) 

All the year round they can study ad nauseam 
their own individual bloaters; but this is the only 
occasion on which they have the whole world of 
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Little Bits of London 

bloaters paraded in front of them for Inspection. 
Now only can they compare notes and exchange 
grievances. 

And how closely they study the parade. Here 
is a pretty limousine, a blonde; see how she 
watches the two huge exhibits in front of her. 
They are very new bloaters, and one of them — 
oh, horror! — one of them is going to buy. He 
has never bought before; she knows his sort. He 
will drive her to death; he may even drive her 
himself; he will stroke her lovely coat in a famil- 
iar, proprietary fashion; he will show her off un- 
ceasingly to other bloaters till she is hot all over 
and the water boils in her radiator. He will hold 
forth with a horrible intimacy and a yet more hor- 
rible ignorance on the most private secrets of her 
inner life. Not one throb of her young cylinders 
will be sacred, yet never will he understand her as 
she would like to be understood. He will mess 
her with his muddy boots; He will scratch her 
paint; he will drop tobacco-ash all over the cush- 
ions — though not from pipes; cigars only. . . . 

There — he has bought her. It is a tragedy. 
Let us move on. 

Here is a little coupe — a smart young creature 
with a nice blue coat, fond of town, I should say, 
but quite at home in the country. She also Is 
Inspecting two bloaters. But these two are very 

[141] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

shy. In fact, they are not really bloaters at all; 
they are rather a pair of nicemannered fresh her- 
rings, not long mated. The male had something 
to do with that war, I should think; the coupe 
would help him a good deal. The lady likes her 
because she is dark-blue. The other one likes her 
because of something to do with her works; but he 
is very reverent and tactful about it. He seems to 
know that he is being scrutinized, for he is ner- 
vous, and scarcely dares to speak about her to the 
groom in the top-hat. He will drive her himself; 
he will look after her himself; he will know all 
about her, all about her moods and fancies and 
secret failings; he will humour and coax her, and 
she will serve him very nobly. 

Already, you see, they have given her a name — 
"Jane," I think they said; they will creep off into 
the country with her when the summer comes, all 
by themselves; they will plunge into the middle of 
thick forests and sit down happily in the shade at 
midday and look at her; and she will love them. 

But the question is Ah, they are shaking 

their heads; they are edging away. She is too 
much. They look back sadly as they go. An- 
other tragedy. . . . 

Now I am going to be a bloater myself. Here 
is a jolly one, though her stable-name is much too 
long. She is a Saloon-de-Luxe and she only costs 

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Little Bits of London 

£2125 (why 5, I wonder — why not 6?). I can 
run to that, surely. At any rate I can climb up 
and sit down on her cushions; none of the grooms 
are looking. Dark blue, I see, like Jane. That 
is the sort of car I prefer. I am like the lady her- 
ring; I don't approve of all this talk about the 
insides of things; it seems to me to be rather in- 
decent — unless, of course, you do it very nicely, 
like that young herring. When you go and look at 
a horse you don't ask how its sweetbread is ar- 
ranged, or what is the principle of its lever. Then 
why should you . . . ? 

Well, here we are, and very comfortable too. 
But why do none of these cars have any means of 
communication between the owner and the man 
next to the chauffeur? There is always a tele- 
phone to the chauffeur, but none to the overflow 
guest on the box. So that when the host sees an 
old manor-house which he thinks the guest hasn't 
noticed he has to hammer on the glass and do sem- 
aphore; and the guest thinks he is being asked if 
he is warm enough. 

Otherwise, though, this is a nice car. It is very 
cosy in here. Dark, and quiet, and warm. I 
could go to sleep in here. 

What? What's that? No, I don't really want 
to buy it, thank you. I just wanted to see if it 

[143] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

was a good sleeping car. As a matter of fact I 
think it is. But I don't like the colour. And what 
I really want is a cabriolet. Good afternoon, 
thank you. . . . 

A pleasant gentleman, that. I wish I could have 
bought the saloon. She would have liked me. So 
would he, I expect. 

Well, we had better go home. I shan't buy any 
more cars today. And we won't go up to the 
gallery; there is nothing but oleo-plugs and gra- 
phite-grease up there. That sort of thing spoils 
the romance. 

Ah, here is dear Jane again! What a pity it 
was — Hullo, they have come back — that nice 
young couple. They are bargaining — they are 
beating him down. No, he is beating them up. 
Go on — go on. Yes, you can run to that — of 
course you can. Sell those oil shares. Look at 
her — look at her! You can't leave her here for 
one of the bloaters. He wavers; he consults. 
"Such a lovely colour." Ah, that's done it! He 
has decided. He has bought. She has bought. 
They have bought. Hurrah ! 



[144] 



Little Bits of London 

V 

BOND STREET 

I FIND it very difficult to walk slowly down 
Bond Street as one ought to do; I always 
feel so guilty. Most of the people there 
look scornfully at me as if I belonged to White- 
chapel, and the rest look suspiciously at me as if 
I belonged to Bond Street. My clothes are neither 
good enough or bad enough. So I hurry through 
with the tense expression of a man who is merely 
using Bond Street as a thoroughfare, because it 
is the way to his dentist — as indeed in my case it 
is. But recently I did saunter in the proper way, 
and I took a most thrilling inventory of the prin- 
cipal classes of shops, the results of which have 
now been tabulated by my statistical department. 
For instance, do you know how many shops in 
the street sell things for ladies to wear (not in- 
cluding boots, jewellery or shoes) ? No? Well, 
there are thirty-three. Not many, is it? But then 

[145] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

there are twenty-one jewellers (including pearl 
shops) and eight boot and/or shoe shops; so that, 
with two sort of linen places, which may fairly 
be reckoned as female, the ladies' total is sixty- 
four. I only counted a hundred and fifty shops 
altogether. Of that total, nine are places where 
men can buy things to wear, and ten are places 
where they can buy things to smoke ; I have char- 
itably debited all the cigarette-shops to the men, 
even the ones where the cigarettes are tipped with 
rose-leaves and violet petals. But even if I do 
that and give the men the two places where you 
can buy guns and throw in the one garden-seat 
shop, we are left with the following result: — 

Feminine Shops. Masculine Shops. 

Dress 33 Dress 9 

Jewellers 21 Tobacco 10 

Boots and Shoes 8 Motors 9 

Sort of Linen Places . . 2 Guns 2 

Dog Bureau i Garden Seats i 

65 31 

From these figures a firm of Manchester actu- 
aries has drawn the startling conclusion that Bond 
Street is more used by women than by men. It 
may be so. But a more interesting question is, 
how do all these duplicates manage to carry on, 
conisdering the very reasonable prices they 
[146] 



Little Bits of London 

charge? At one point there are three jewellers 
In a row, with another one opposite. Not far off 
there are three cigarette-shops together, madly 
defying each other with gold-tips and silver-tips, 
cork-tips and velvet-tips, rose-tips and lily-tips. 
There is only one book-shop, of course, but there 
are about nine picture-places. How do they all 
exist? It is mysterious. 

Especially when you consider how much trouble 
they take to avoid attracting attention. There 
are still one or two window-dressers who lower 
the whole tone of the street by adhering to the 
gaudy-overcrowded style; but the majority in a 
violent reaction from that, seem to have rushed 
to the wildest extremes of the simple-unobtrusive. 
They are delightful, I think, those reverent little 
windows with the chaste curtains and floors of 
polished walnut, in the middle of which reposes 
delicately a single toque, a single chocolate, or a 
single pearl. Some of the picture-places are 
among the most modest. There is one window 
which suggests nothing but the obscure branch 
of a highly decayed bank in the dimmest cathe- 
dral town. On the dingy screen which entirely 
fills the window is written simply in letters which 
time has almost erased, "John Smith — Pictures." 
Nothing could be less enticing. Yet inside, I 
daresay, fortunes are made daily. I noticed no 

[147] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

trace of this method at the Advertisers' Exhibi- 
tion; they might give it a trial. 

Now no doubt ypu fondly think that Bond 
Street is wholly devojted to luxuries; perhaps you 
have abandoned you^ dream of actually buying 
something in Bond Street? You are wrong. To 
begin with, there are about ten places where you 
can buy food, and, though there is no pub, now, 
there is a cafe (with a license). There are two 
grocers and a poulterer. There is even a fish- 
shop — you didn't know that, did you ? I am bound 
to say it seemed to have only the very largest fish, 
but they were obviously fish. 

Anyone can go shopping in Bond Street. I 
knew a clergyman once who went in and asked for 
a back-stud. He was afterwards unfrocked for 
riotous living, but the stud was produced. You 
can buy a cauliflower in Bond Street — if you know 
the ropes. There is a shop which merely looks 
like a very beautiful florist's. There are potatoes 
in the window, it is true, but they are "hot-house" 
ones; inside there is no trace of a common vege- 
table. But if you ask facetiously for a cauliflower 
(as I did) the young lady will disappear below 
ground and actually return with a real cauliflower 
{de luxe, of course). I remember few more em- 
barassing episodes. 

And if you like to inquire at the magnificent 
[148] 



Little Bits of London 

provision-merchant's, he too will conjure up from 
the magic cellars boot-cream and metal-polish and 
all those vulgar groceries which make life possible. 
That is the secret of Bond Street. Beneath that 
glittering display of luxurious trivialities there are 
vast reserves of solid prosaic necessaries, only 
waiting to be asked for. A man could live ex- 
clusively on Bond Street. I don't know where 
you would buy your butcher's meat, but I have a 
proud fancy that, if you went in and said some- 
thing to one of those sleek and sorrowful jewel- 
lers, he too would vanish underground and blandly 
return to you with a jewelled steak or a plush 
chop. 

Many years ago, they tell me, there was a 
butcher in Bond Street. Perhaps you dealt there. 
For my part I was not eating much meat in those 
days. But I can imagine his window — a perfect 
little grotto of jasper and onyx, with stalactites 
of pure gold, and in the middle, resting on a gen- 
uine block of Arctic ice, an exquisite beef-sausage. 
I wish he could come back. 

It is difficult to realize that there is anything 
but shop-windows in Bond Street, but I like to 
think that, up there in those upper stories which 
one never sees, there does dwell a self-contained 
little community for whom Bond Street is merely 
the village street, down which the housewives pass 

[149] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

gossiping each morning to the greengrocer's or 
the fishmonger's, and never purchase any pearls 
at all. 

When the butcher comes back I think I shall 
join them. 



[150] 



The Little Guiggols 

[I understand that there is a dearth of the kind of hor- 
rible little plays which the public really wants. It ought 
not to be difficult to meet that want. Nearly everybody I 
know is good at dialogues but can't do plots; personally I 
teem with plots, but am not so good at dialogue. So I 
propose to present you with the ground plan — the scenario 
— of a few really sensational, thrilling and, on the whole, 
unpleasant playlets, and you can do the rest.] 



THE MISSING STAR 

(Based on an old legend, and also, I am sorry to say, on 
fact.) 

THE scene is the interior of a small tent at 
a country fair. Through the open door 
can be seen the back of Bert, who is shout- 
ing madly, "Walk up ! Walk up ! Now showin' 
— the Performin' Fleas! Edward! Edward! 
Does everything but talk. Walk up ! Walk up !" 
Seven or eight people file sheepishly into the tent 
and stand reverently In front of the small table 
under the single bright light — a soldier and his 

[151] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

love, two small boys, a highly respectable mater 
and paterfamilias, with Reginald in an Eton collar, 
also a young man who may be a barrister, or pos- 
sibly one of those writing fellows. They do not 
look at each other; they are ashamed. 

The red velvet curtain is drawn across the door 
of the tent, muffling the wild noises of the fair. 

Mr. Slint, the little showman, adjusts his gold 
pincenez and speaks; the audience close round the 
table and crane their necks. Mr. Slint speaks in 
the patronizing, almost contemptuous, tones of 
the expert lecturer who has something unique to 
offer. 

Mr. Slint (quietly). I now show you the Per- 
forming Fleas. The fleas are common fleas, 
trained by myself. Perseverance and patience is 
alone required. 

The Writing Fellow {intelligently). You 
never use the whip? 

Mr. Slint (taking no notice). Now the nature 
of the flea is to 'op; it is not the nature of the flea 
to walk. I 'ave trained the fleas to walk. I will 
now show you the flea as newly captured. Being 
still untrained, 'e still 'ops, you see. 

He produces a miniature kennel, to which is 
attached "by a 'uman 'air" an undeniable flea. 
The flea hops gallantly, but is clearly impeded 
from doing its best jumps by the human hair. 

[152] 



The Little Guiggols 

We are now shown a second flea which is "only 
half-trained." He has certainly forgotten how 
to hop. Indeed he seems to be suffering from 
congenital inertia. He scrambles a centimetre or 
two and sometimes makes a sort of flutter off the 
ground, but he rather suggests a solicitor learning 
to fly than a flea learning to wallc. 

Mr. S. I will now show you the flea when fully 
trained. 

He opens a small cardboard box which seems to 
be full of toy four-wheelers and hansom-cabs. 
They are made of some metal, brightly painted, 
with substantial metal wheels. One of these ve- 
hicles is placed on the lighted board and begins to 
move. It is drawn by Eustace. It moves at a 
steady pace towards the materfamilias. 

Reginald {suddenly, in a high piping voice). 
How does he feed them, mother? 

The Materfamilias. Hush, dear. 

Mr. S. (impassive) . The fleas are fed on the 
'uman arm. (Jn after-thought) My own. 

Reginald {an imaginative child). Does he 
feed them one at a time or all together, mother? 

The M.F. Hush, dear. 

Mr. S. I will now show you Edward, cham- 
pion flea of the world. 

Edward is indeed a magnificent creature. He 
is drawing a light racing hansom and he shows an 

[153] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

amazing turn of speed. Eustace with his heavy 
old four-wheeler has a long start, but in a mo- 
ment Edward is up with him; he has passed him. 

Reginald {breathlessly). Mother, he's run- 
ning! 

And so he is. He is making a bee-line for the 
M.F. Will he reach her? No. Mr. Slint has 
cooly picked up Edward's hansom and is showing 
him to the spectators through a magnifying-glass. 
The limelight is thrown on to Edward's swarthy 
features and by an ingenious use of the cinema we 
are now shown a striking "close-up" of Edward's 
expression as he is passed round before the people 
in the tent, hanging in his tiny collar at the end 
of the human hair. Rage, hatred, mortification, 
boredom, and what can only be described as the 
lust for blood are indicated in turn by the rolling 
eyes, the mobile lips. And, as he passes before 
the M.F., he wears a look of thwarted ambition 
which makes one shudder. 

Now comes the final spectacle. Out of the 
little box Mr. Slint rapidly takes cab after cab 
and sets them on the white board, line abreast. 
Each cab is drawn by a single devoted flea. On the 
right of the line is Edward, on the left is Eustace. 
In perfect order the fleas advance, dressing by the 
right. . . . 

It is a moving sight. There is something very 

[154] . 



The Little Guiggols 

sinister in that steady, noiseless, calculated pro- 
gress — for I need not say that the fleas are mov- 
ing away from Mr. Slint: they are moving with 
machine-like precision towards Reginald. No, 
they have changed direction. Edward has given 
them "Right incline!" They are moving with 
machine-gun precision, silent, inexorable, cabs and 
all, towards the materfamilias. 

R. {Shrilly, still worried). Do they have to be 
unharnessed for meals, mother? 

The M.F. Hush, dear. 

Mr. Slint purrs on about his patience and per- 
severance. Suddenly there is a stir on the right 
of the line; there has been an accident; Edward's 
wheels are locked with the careless four-wheeler's 
on his left. A scurry, a sharp cry from Mr. Slint 
and Edward has disappeared. 

Mr. Slint acts promptly. The door of the tent 
is barred. He announces to the cowering specta- 
tors that a valuable artiste is missing and that 
those present are to be searched before leaving. 
{He suspects font play.) 

Suddenly he makes a dart at the M.F. and from 
her shoulder — oh, horror! — he takes a Thing. 
"Larceny!" he cries; "I mean abduction. Quick 
Bert, the police." 

The Paterfamilias. Spare her, sir. She Is a 
mother. 

[155] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

A -policeman {entering^. Now then, what's 
this 'ere? 

Mr. S. (moved by who knows what chivalrous 
impulse). Madam, I have wronged you. This 
is not Edward. It is one of yours. {He replaces 
the Thing.) 

The M.F. {shrieking) . Oh, oh! The shame 
of it! 

Reginald. I know, mother! Put it on the 
table. If it's Edward it will walk: if it's one of — 
if it's not, it will hop. 

The Thing is placed solemnly upon the table. 
All crowd around and watch for the issue. The 
flea does not walk. On the other hand it does 
not hop. Nothing happens. The flea is dead. 

So no one will ever know. 

The M.F. swoons away. . . . 



CURTAIN 



[156] 



The Little Guiggols 
II 

THE LURCH 

[Tyltyl. "It seems hardly worth while, then, to take 
so much trouble." — The Betrothal.] 

I AM afraid this little Guiggol has somehow 
got mixed up with M. Maeterlinck; but the 
two schools have, of course, a good deal in 
common, so it should work out fairly well. 

The play opens in The Place Which is Neither 
Here nor There ; it seems to be a high hill entirely 
surrounded by fog. The unfortunate Bill Tyl and 
his sister Methyl* are doing their utmost to die, 
driven on by the sinister figure of Indigestion, 
which grows larger and larger as the play pro- 
gresses. They meet with a good deal of opposi- 
tion in their simple project, and when the play be- 
gins they have already been to the House of 

* Who afterwards gave her name to the celebrated spirits. 

[157] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

Uncles and The Abode of the Half-Baked for 
permission to die ; but they always find that before 
they can do it they have to go to just one more 
place for information and advice. It is like walk- 
ing up one of those tiresome mountains which 
never seem to have a top; or it is like trying to 
find out which Government Department is really 
responsible; or it is like. . . .But enough. 

Bill and Methyl have now been told that they 
cannot die until they have gone down and rescued 
all the people who have been left in The Lurch 
during their lives; so they are discovered standing 
on the hill preparing to go down to The Lurch. 
Indigestion endeavours to dissuade them, saying 
that they had much better go down the other side 
of the hill into The Limbo. But the seductive 
figure of Food intervenes, gorgeously, dressed in 
aspic, and eventually prevails. 

At this point there is a jolly bit of dialogue. — 

Bill {profoundly) . Food is good. 

The Oldest Uncle {I forget how he got there). 
Food is very good. 

Food {mysteriously) . The food which you eat 
is good, but the food which you do not eat is 
better. 

Methyl {frightened) . What does she mean? 

Bill. I do not know what she means. 

Food. I do not know what I mean. 

[158] 



The Little Guiggols 

The O. U. I do not know what the author 
means. 

M. Does anybody know what he means? 
■ Indigestion. He does not mean anything. 

Bill. Oh, oh! I wish he would mean some- 
thing. 

Ind. He is pulling your leg. 

The next scene is The Lurch itself, a very hor- 
rible place, where we see all the people who have 
been left in it wishing they could get out of it; 
or at least we don't see them because the whole 
place is full of a dense fog; but they are there, 
groping about and contemplating unutterably the 
opaque immensities of boredom. Their hands 
move visibly through the vast gloom, plying the 
instruments of Destiny; most of them knitting. 
You see, they are nearly all old maids. None of 
them can be got out of The Lurch until those who 
left them in it remember them and return. There 
are also, of course, large crowds of old men in 
all stages of decay. Many of them are Colonels 
who have been left in The Lurch by the Govern- 
ment and naturally there is no hope for them. It 
is all extremely sad. 

In low tones they do a little dialogue, like sheep 
bleating on the Mountains of Eternity. 

The Oldest Old Maid. Will he never come? 

[159] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

The Oldest Old Maid But One. He will never 
come. 

A Frightfully Old Man. The fog is very foggy. 

The O. O. M. It is difficult to see things in a 
fog. 

The O. O. M. B. O. If he came I should not 
see him. 

An Awfully Old Colonel. You are lucky. 

The O. O. M. B. O. I am not lucky. 

The O. O. M. She is not lucky. 

A. F. O. M. There must be some mistake. 

An A. O. C. You are not waiting for the Gov- 
ernment. That is what I meant. 

The O. O. M. Oh, oh ! He meant something. 

A. F. O. M. There must be some mistake. 

The O. O. M. B. O. Oh, oh! Somebody is 
coming. 

Bill and his party come in on all-fours. You 
cannot see them because of the fog, but you can 
hear them coughing. It is terrible. There is a 
scene of intense intensity while Bill Tyl and 
Methyl crawl about trying to find the people they 
have come to find. Bill keeps finding the Awfully 
Old Colonel by mistake, and this causes a great 
deal of emotion. The one he is after is The Old- 
est Old Maid But One, and, as she says nothing 
but "Oh, Oh, I cannot smell him," instead of say- 
[i6o] 



The Little Guiggols 

ing, "Here I am, Bill," it is very difficult to iden- 
tify her. 

But suddenly Methyl remembers that in all her 
blameless life she has never left anyone in The 
Lurch. (Wood-wind, sotto voce — and strings, 
vibrato.) The rule is that anyone who comes 
down to The Lurch and remembers things like 
that may rescue everyone who is in The Lurch at 
the time. 

This gives general satisfaction and the whole 
party sets off to the top, Old Maids and all. 

In the next scene we are back at The Place 
Which Is Neither Here Nor There again, only 
now we have a splendid view of The Place of 
Ecstasy and The Golden Sea. Also a little to the 
left we see the yawning chasms of The Limbo 
(which is only one better than The Lurch). 

The Place of Ecstacy is top-hole. Gleaming 
unspeakably in the unimaginable radiance of the 
inconceivable light (80 watts), immense columns 
of barley-sugar melt away into space, avenue by 
avenue, while just below in The Golden Sea, which 
is entirely composed of the finest golden syrup, 
wallow in a refined manner Those Who Have Ar- 
rived. 

The travellers feast their eyes on this vision of 
bliss. And now comes the terrible, Guiggolian 
thrill. There has been a good deal of dialogue 

[161] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

on the way up from The Lurch, and poor Bill has 
been brooding gloomily over the prospect of 
spending eternity in the same company. 

All the Old Birds are standing in a violet haze 
of ineffable gladness on the brink, with joyous 
springs of orangeade bubbling at their feet and 
castor sugar descending in showers all round, 
when Bill has a very naughty impulse, which I 
regret to say he makes no attempt to resist. 

He rushes the whole crowd of Old Birds over 
into The Limbo. Then with a great cry of joy 
he and Methyl plunge into the Golden Sea. 

Food and Indigestion are left behind — immut- 
able, eternal. . . . 



CURTAIN 



[162] 



The Little Guiggols 
III 

NUMBER SEVEN 

{Based on an old legend) 

A Room in the East. Some time ago. A Man 
and a Woman having supper. 

She. You eat heartily, my pomegranate. 

He. Yes, I am hungry. And I am happy, for 
is it not our bridal feast? 

She. That reminds me. There is something 
I want to tell you. As a matter of fact I meant 
to tell you before, but I have been so busy buying 
clothes. 

He. Oh, what is that? Pass the salt. 

She {passing). The fact is, you are not my 
first husband; at least, not exactly. 

He. How do you mean? 

She. As a matter of fact you are the — the first 
but five. 

[163] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

He {working it out). I see. I take it the 
others are away from home. 

She {gently). No. They died. Have some 
more salad? 

He. Thank you. I'm sorry. At least, you 
know what I mean. 

She. The odd thing was that they all died at 
the same time — in a way. 

He. Oh! Was there an epidemic, or what? 

She. Oh, no. What I mean is they each died 
the night we were married. 

He. That is curious. Why did they die ? 

She. Nobody knows. They just died. It's 
given me a great deal of bother. 

He. But I suppose you've been able to use the 
same trousseau in each case. 

She. But nay; for I have invariably embroid- 
ered every garment in gold and silver with the 
name and image of my love. 

He. By Jove, what a bore ! I say, have you 
embroidered any garments with my name and 
image? I'd like to see them. 

She {sadly). Nay, my beloved. This time I 
have embroidered nothing. It seems such a waste. 

He. Yes, yes, of course. All the same 

You know, my olive branch, I can't help wishing 
you'd told me about this before we were wed. 

She. I am sorry, my love. I can't think how it 

[164] 



The Little Guiggols 

slipped my memory. But there was so much shop- 
ping to be done, and what with one thing and 
another Do have some more salad. 

He. Thanks; its delicious. By the way, who 
made it? 

She. With her own fair hands your lily con- 
trived it. 

He. Oh! Perhaps, after all, I won't have any 
more. I don't feel so hungry as I thought I did. 

She. The last but two used to love my salads. 
All his married life 

He {musing). By the way, when you say 
"night," what time of night do you mean? When 
did the last but two, for instance 

She. I should have said "evening" really; it 
was careless of me. Usually about nine 

He {looking at hour-glass) . Curious — I don't 
feel nearly so well. I wonder if 

{^The curtains falls to denote the passage of a 
few months. When it rises two people are dis- 
covered at supper — a Woman {the same one) 
and a Man {a different one). 

She. You eat heartily, my pomegranate. 

He. Who would not eat heartily on the day of 
his espousal to such a maid as thee. 

She. That reminds me. I knew there was 
something I wanted to tell you, but the wedding 
put it quite out of my head. 

[165] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

He. Truly, what shouldst thou think of at thy 
espousal but thy spouse? 

She. Do you minding saying "you"? None of 
the others have said "thou." 

He. As you will, beloved. But of what 
"others" speakest thou? 

She. Well, that's really the point. The fact 
is, my tangerine, you are not my first spouse — at 
least, not quite. 

He. How so? What delicious salad! 

She. Have some more. No, you are — let me 
see — one, two, three, four — yes, you are the first 
but six. It's rather a curious story; I wonder if 
it will bore you? 

He. What tale from thy sweet lips could tedi- 
ous be? 

She. I wish you'd get out of that "thy" habit; 
it's so irritating. Well, the fact is that all your 
predecessors died on the evening of our wedding — 
I mean weddings — and nobody quite knows why. 

He. Truly a strange tale. May I have just 
one more go at the salad? 

She. Of course. I'm so glad you like it. Curi- 
ously enough, the one before you was very fond 

of it too; in fact I've often wondered Well, 

there it is. Now I do hope that nothing is going 
to happen to you, my dear, because I should so 
hate to think that you had been put to any in- 
[i66] 



The Little Guiggols 

convenience on my account. Besides, it upsets the 
servants. 

He. Have no fear, beloved. For I too have a 
secret. I know thy — your — tragic history; a 
witch has revealed it unto me. 

She. You know? Well, I do think you might 
have told me. I meant it to be a surprise. 

He. Further, she has given me a magic charm 
to protect us both. 

She. I say, what's that mess in the corner? 
There — on the plate. 

He. That is the heart and liver of a fish, my 
apple. 

She. I hope you haven't brought a cat into the 
house; father can't bear them. 

He. Nay, my love, that is the charm. 

She. It looks a very large one. What fish 
is it? 

He. It is the heart and liver of a sturgeon. 

She. I suppose it couldn't have been done with 
an anchovy? 

He. Nay, nay. For the witch enjoined me; 
first I must burn it 

She. Yes, I think you'd better. 

He. See? {Burns.) The ashes thereof will 
drive away the evil spirit that molests you. 

She {recoiling) . And I don't wonder. 

[167] 



Little Rays of Moonshine 

l^The Curtain falls, and rises again the next 
morning. The room is full of smoke. 

He {shaving). Who is that man digging in the 
garden? 

She. Oh, that's father. He's digging a grave 
for you. It's become a sort of habit with him. 

He. Wilt thou not tell him it is not required? 

She {through the window). Father, we shan't 
want it this time. Sorry. 

He. I thank thee. 

She {irritable) . Oh, do stop saying "thee." 
And will you please take these horrible ashes and 
throw them away at oncef Really, I can hardly 
breathe. 

He. Nay, my love. They are our charm 
against danger. Art not thou — aren't you, I 
mean — grateful ? 

She. Yes, of course. But they've done the 
trick by now. We can't spend our whole married 
life in this atmosphere. 

He. But indeed we must. The witch enjoined 
me that, unless they were preservd, I should per- 
ish, even as those before me. 

She. Well, I'm extremely sorry, but I really 
can't stand this. {Through the window.) Father, 
you might bury this, will you? {throws down the 
ashes). Thank you. Oh, and don't fill up the 
hole yet. We may want it after all. 
CURTAIN 

[i68] 



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